The Mid-East

[bellisarius]

A "Trumpless" thread. Just an attempt to provide an overview of what's going on there. The dynamics as it were. It all predates Trump by decades and in some cases by centuries. Trump is merely playing with the hand he's been dealt and, hopefully, as the thread evolves some may come to see that there is NO right answer or policy.

Let's start with the regions prime mover;

Religion

It's no secret that the mid-East is the mixing pot of the Islamic world. There are damn near as many sect of Islam as there are Protestant Christians. And when they aren't busy killing Jews and Christians, they turn on each other. There are two major categories of Muslims, Sunni and Shia'. They don't like each other and have been at war with each other since the day Mohammad died. And within each of those major sects are sub-sects, also at war with each other. And by war I don't mean that figuratively, they kill each other when they can't identify a common enemy.

The anchor point are Saudi Arabia, Sunni, and Iran, Shia'. So what is essentially going on is a power struggle between those two entities with shifting alliances of the lesser parties between the two.

Iran was NOT fighting ISIS as an ally of the US, or anyone else for that matter. ISIS was radical Sunni and represented a threat to their regional power and influence. The notion that they were our friends in that fight is ludicrous. They were fighting for their own interests.

Syria is an interesting hodge-podge of competing religious influence. The ruling class in Syria (Assad) is Alawite. This is a sect of Islam considered borderline apostate by both the Sunni and Shia'. However the general population is primarily Sunni. Yet Iran is in there supporting the Assad regime in order to prevent Saudi Arabia from gaining influence.

The Kurd's are Sunni but practice religious tolerance and as such are detested by the more "purist" Sunni and Shia' sects. The issue with the Turks and the PPK group of Kurd's is a separate issue and has little to do with religion.

If it weren't for other considerations, which I'll cover in the next post, it would be best if the rest of the world kept their noses and asses out of the region and let them go about killing each other off.

 

[Fart_knocker]

Trumpless thread: Mentions Trump 3 times in opening sentence.

 

[heathergives]

Thank you,Bellisarius, for your thoughtful and well-worded post.

I suppose that people living in a "free" state, such as the USA since the 18th Century have no concept of the restrictions placed on day-to-day life by a theocracy, Christian or otherwise. Here, we don't care if someone is Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Jewish Muslim, or Flying Spaghetti Monster adherents. Or at least, that's the way our laws intend it to be.

An example; Other than the ongoing Catholic Church child molestaion scandals, the most recent religious issue I've read is the possible split of the United Methodist Church regarding LBGQT(XYZ) rights and all that. (I was baptised a Methodist, but am an agnostic.) Sure, it's news, but hardly an earth-shaking issue here.

Over there,it's an entirely different world. Lives and careers can be determined by your sect, I suppose.

I'm beginning to wonder why we (the US) continues to be involved over there, especially as the USA is also now a major oil exporter. I do know that iran is considered to be a destabilizing influence in the region, just as Saddam's Iraq was, and that the US is committed to supporting our "Allies" there (Israel, Saudi Arabia, et.al -[ if that isn't an oxymoron I don't know what is...]) however the fact remains that those people have been fighting for one reason or another for over 5,000 years and it's not likely that the West (as we call it) is likely to be able to do anything about it.

My Dad fought in Vietnam, and if he was here today I think he would have been really pissed off if we would continue to screw around with the middle East anymore.

Just my thoughts.

 

[heathergives]

Trumpless thread: Mentions Trump 3 times in opening sentence.

^^^Whatever you say, luk.^^^

Do you study until the late hours ; learning how to be such a jerk?

 

[von_Bismarck]

A "Trumpless" thread. Just an attempt to provide an overview of what's going on there. The dynamics as it were. It all predates Trump by decades and in some cases by centuries. Trump is merely playing with the hand he's been dealt and, hopefully, as the thread evolves some may come to see that there is NO right answer or policy.

Let's start with the regions prime mover;

Religion

It's no secret that the mid-East is the mixing pot of the Islamic world. There are damn near as many sect of Islam as there are Protestant Christians. And when they aren't busy killing Jews and Christians, they turn on each other. There are two major categories of Muslims, Sunni and Shia'. They don't like each other and have been at war with each other since the day Mohammad died. And within each of those major sects are sub-sects, also at war with each other. And by war I don't mean that figuratively, they kill each other when they can't identify a common enemy.

The anchor point are Saudi Arabia, Sunni, and Iran, Shia'. So what is essentially going on is a power struggle between those two entities with shifting alliances of the lesser parties between the two.

Iran was NOT fighting ISIS as an ally of the US, or anyone else for that matter. ISIS was radical Sunni and represented a threat to their regional power and influence. The notion that they were our friends in that fight is ludicrous. They were fighting for their own interests.

Syria is an interesting hodge-podge of competing religious influence. The ruling class in Syria (Assad) is Alawite. This is a sect of Islam considered borderline apostate by both the Sunni and Shia'. However the general population is primarily Sunni. Yet Iran is in there supporting the Assad regime in order to prevent Saudi Arabia from gaining influence.

The Kurd's are Sunni but practice religious tolerance and as such are detested by the more "purist" Sunni and Shia' sects. The issue with the Turks and the PPK group of Kurd's is a separate issue and has little to do with religion.

If it weren't for other considerations, which I'll cover in the next post, it would be best if the rest of the world kept their noses and asses out of the region and let them go about killing each other off.

Lemme guess. This is your attempt at appearing knowledgeable and relevant.

 

[heathergives]

Lemme guess. This is your attempt at appearing knowledgeable and relevant.

And this is your (successful) attempt at avoiding a rational discussion of the issue.

 

[Ann_Tagonist]

Trumpless thread: Mentions Trump 3 times in opening sentence.

Once a penis gazer, always a penis gazer.

 

[Ann_Tagonist]

And this is your (successful) attempt at avoiding a rational discussion of the issue.

Which one do you suppose is the bottom?

 

[heathergives]

Which one do you suppose is the bottom?

That's a question that is best left unseen.

 

[bellisarius]

Con't.

Oil

Yes folks, it is all about oil. It's unfortunate that that geographical world equivalent of the South side of Chicago is blessed with abundant oil.

We, the US, don't need that oil, we became energy independent many months ago. From the perspective or our needs we could care less anymore. BUT. The rest of the world needs that oil. Especially the far-East. Japan, China, Korea, and others are all competing for that oil. And they WILL go to war with each other over that resource if needs be.

Japan is no more than 6 months away from being a nuclear power if they put the resources to the effort. They have the launch vehicles and they are sitting on the largest supply of reactor grade Plutonium in the world. And reactor grade Plutonium will make a bomb (the US-UK proved this in 1962), a very dirty, very inefficient bomb. But quite sufficient to trigger an thermo-nuclear device. You can add to that that N. Korea's and China's provocations have caused the Japanese leadership to start prepping their population for just that eventuality.

China's expansion and claims re. the South China Sea have considerably more to do with choking off Japan's and S. Korea's energy supplies than any other reason.

Russia is siding with China...........for now. And Russia's weapons programs have a hell of a lot more to do with deterring China than the US. Russia has a ton of undeveloped oil reserves and they plan on being the prime supplier to China and Central Europe. Unfortuantely for the Russians those reserves are in Siberia, much closer to China than anywhere else. And the Siberian population is ethnically Asian. China eyes that piece of real estate with longing. If they had that real estate they' have no need for the mid-East or the Sprately's beyond fucking with Japan and S. Korea. So there's a three way arms race going on, the Russians v. China with us having to keep up. Remember folks, both Russia and China are continental powers, not global powers (although China IS trying to build a blue water Navy).

And that is why everyone has their noses and asses in the mid-East.

More specifics re. the US in the next post.

 

[heathergives]

Oil

Yes folks, it is all about oil. It's unfortunate that that geographical world equivalent of the South side of Chicago is blessed with abundant oil.

We, the US, don't need that oil, we became energy independent many months ago. From the perspective or our needs we could care less anymore. BUT. The rest of the world needs that oil. Especially the far-East. Japan, China, Korea, and others are all competing for that oil. And they WILL go to war with each other over that resource if needs be.

Japan is no more than 6 months away from being a nuclear power if they put the resources to the effort. They have the launch vehicles and they are sitting on the largest supply of reactor grade Plutonium in the world. And reactor grade Plutonium will make a bomb (the US-UK proved this in 1962), a very dirty, very inefficient bomb. But quite sufficient to trigger an thermo-nuclear device. You can add to that that N. Korea's and China's provocations have caused the Japanese leadership to start prepping their population for just that eventuality.

This is true. Japan has been considered a de facto nuclear power simply because they are believed to have to capability to build a nuclear weapon within 6 months, if needed.

China's expansion and claims re. the South China Sea have considerably more to do with choking off Japan's and S. Korea's energy supplies than any other reason.

Russia is siding with China...........for now. And Russia's weapons programs have a hell of a lot more to do with deterring China than the US. Russia has a ton of undeveloped oil reserves and they plan on being the prime supplier to China and Central Europe. Unfortunately for the Russians those reserves are in Siberia, much closer to China than anywhere else. And the Siberian population is ethnically Asian. China eyes that piece of real estate with longing. If they had that real estate they' have no need for the mid-East or the Sprately's beyond fucking with Japan and S. Korea. So there's a three way arms race going on, the Russians v. China with us having to keep up. Remember folks, both Russia and China are continental powers, not global powers (although China IS trying to build a blue water Navy).

China is a paradox, attempting to maintain their Communist ideology while slowly allowing free market enterprise. They have no problems with the US, other than the tariffs, which are offset by their exports to the rest of the world.

And that is why everyone has their noses and asses in the mid-East.

More specifics re. the US in the next post.

Not bad.

 

[bellisarius]

Not bad.

I know.

 

[heathergives]

I know.

Thanks for your posts. (Seriously.) Good night.

 

[bellisarius]

The US stake.

Now that the US is energy independent theoretically we could tell the rest of the world to go piss up a rope. Well, not quite.

The US is the worlds currency reserve. All oil is traded in US dollars. If we were to wall ourselves off then oil would be traded in Yuan's, Rubble's, or some other currency. (The BRIC's have been after this for a while now, although India isn't so favorable these days.) The problem is that if the dollar is replaced as the worlds reserve currency, the US economy collapses. It really is that simple. US economists have nightmares over this scenario.

There are some alternatives. If congress repealed the "no export" law we could form an alliance with Canada (just not with soy boy running the show), call it CanAmPec and still keep the rats in their cages. Maybe Mexico would join in (if they ever get their politics together) and we could simplify the acronym to CUMPEC.

Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

 

[haventdonethat]

The US stake.
snip

"just not with soy boy running the show".

LMAO!
Just about ruined my keyboard with some good Canadian whiskey over that one!

 

[von_Bismarck]

And this is your (successful) attempt at avoiding a rational discussion of the issue.

O'rly. Let's see Ishmale confuse catastrophism with punctuated equilibrium again.

 

[heathergives]

O'rly. Let's see Ishmale confuse catastrophism with punctuated equilibrium again.

I fail to see how Herman Melville's character has a bearing on the topic at hand.

 

[ishtat]

If you fancy a cold shiver just take a map of the middle eastern oil reserves/producing areas. Then superimpose on that, a map of where Shia people live. In countries like Iraq and the Gulf states even Saudi Arabia the Shia are disproportionate populations in these areas.

Finally map where the Iranians/Persians live - at least 30 million outside of Iran, 470,000 in the USA. The issues, military, civil or economic, cannot be solved through force.

 

[Conager]

Hereditary Sunburst race yesterday can't remember where I'll dig it up if I can. They were talking about the fact that Iran needs to go to war because they've got an aging population and their birth rate is too low.

The Sunni are going to completely overwhelm them in numbers within 20 years

 

[Adre]

Except Trump is not merely playing the hand he was dealt.

He swapped a few cards the moment he pulled the US out of the JCPOA, an agreement that by most accounts was working as intended. And he did this for no good reason other than undoing the legacy of his predecessor, a man he both envies and hates.

The GB’s right wing mouth breathers will be along soon to counter this with Sunday’s Fox talking points as soon as they finish their Fruit Loops and clean their rooms.

 

[bellisarius]

Except Trump is not merely playing the hand he was dealt.

He swapped a few cards the moment he pulled the US out of the JCPOA, an agreement that by most accounts was working as intended. And he did this for no good reason other than undoing the legacy of his predecessor, a man he both envies and hates.

The GB’s right wing mouth breathers will be along soon to counter this with Sunday’s Fox talking points as soon as they finish their Fruit Loops and clean their rooms.

Your TDS has become tragically pathological. I'd tell you to seek professional help but I'm afraid there is no help for you at all.

 

[heathergives]

Your TDS has become tragically pathological. I'd tell you to seek professional help but I'm afraid there is no help for you at all.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.hLC_NMivrnaer20n5tBn7AHaGH&pid=Api&rs=1

 

[Adre]

Your TDS has become tragically pathological. I'd tell you to seek professional help but I'm afraid there is no help for you at all.

We understand, it’s always TDS when the Trump apologists have no meaningful counterpoint.

 

[FGB]

If you fancy a cold shiver just take a map of the middle eastern oil reserves/producing areas. Then superimpose on that, a map of where Shia people live. In countries like Iraq and the Gulf states even Saudi Arabia the Shia are disproportionate populations in these areas.

Finally map where the Iranians/Persians live - at least 30 million outside of Iran, 470,000 in the USA. The issues, military, civil or economic, cannot be solved through force.

Hitler & company might disagree with you just a Tad...

 

[Ann_Tagonist]

The MidEast is a fuck-up of Biblical proportions.