I have talked at length about the growing monetary, ideological and political schism developing between the Eurasian powers, and the Western ones.
I have talked at length about the growing Eurasian coalition of resistance against American interests, against American interventionism, against the dollar.
I have talked at length about that coalition’s fear of further American encroachment into Eurasia.
So I was especially prepared for further spats between the two coalitions during 2012, and especially over Iran and Syria.
But the nastiness and disdainfulness of today’s events surprised even me.
An Arab and Western-backed resolution condemning the violent crackdown in Syria has been vetoed at the UN Security Council by Russia and China.
The two permanent council members rejected the draft resolution, which came hours after activists accused Syrian security forces of killing at least 55 people at Homs.
The US ambassador said the vetoes were “shameful”, Britain was “appalled”.
China and Russia defended their move, saying the draft was “unbalanced”.
Russia says the draft resolution had singled out the government of President Bashar al-Assad, and did not containing measures against armed opposition groups.
But proposed Russian amendments to the text were described as “unacceptable” by the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to have talks with Mr Assad in Damascus on Tuesday.
To be clear: this resolution was a step toward military intervention against Bashar al-Assad. I am extremely sceptical that this is a good idea. I believe that the best thing that the global community can do is facilitate dialogue between the government and the protestors, and work toward a peaceful compromise.
This is not because I believe al-Assad deserves to remain in power. He is certainly a tyrant and despot of the highest order. But can we honestly say that committing guns, blood and money to deposing him will guarantee peace and stability? Can we honestly say that the next regime might not be worse? I do not believe we can — especially considering that almost every nation involved in the “Arab Spring” has since elected Islamists to power.
Even with the support of the Arab league, is getting entangled into another messy and open-ended conflict in Russia and China’s backyard really a good idea? Some voices in China are already rumbling that they would be willing to go to war to prevent an American takeover of Iran.
If avoiding nuclear proliferation is our goal, intervention is certainly a bad idea. Qaddafi’s deposition — in stark contrast to nuclear-armed North Korea — was a signpost to rogue regimes that the only way to ensure their survival is to pursue nuclear armaments.
So the biggest story here — and the real reason for the Sino-Russian veto — is the rumbling tension between the Western and Eurasian blocs.
It is a hornets’ nest the West should not stir. Instead, I believe, we should be more concerned about our own economies, particularly the factors of energy independence, resource independence and domestic manufacturing. For the Eurasian powers are not merely nations far across the world: they are our productive base, our resource base, our labour base. Without their support and co-operation the West’s physical economy will be severely damaged.
In insisting upon picking sides in the Syrian Civil War, we might well be shooting ourselves in the foot. Or the head.
azizonomics 
Syria is the only neighboring country to Iran that is not yet under US control. So, the USA wants to invade it to fully surround Iran and conquer it more easily.
Russia-China are of course against this
Attacking Iran is a very, very bad idea. America is already in a huge debt hole.
More war means more lost product, more lost lives, more expenditure in blood and money. America can’t afford it.
As the dollar -and the rest of the fiat currencies- are losing their value due to money printing, we are approaching a point where the world will simply reject them, and the West will not be able to have oil – at least not at “reasonable” prices by today’s standards.
This is why the USA “must” attack all the oil states who try to break free from the dollar, and start accepting other means of payment – because no mater how much it costs them to go to war, it will cost them a lot more if the world finally gets of the “dollar standard”, and the value of the dollar goes to almost zero.
The main thing that prevents the oil states from rejecting the dollar right now is their fear of being attacked by the USA – if that fear goes away, then they will be free to choose what currency to accept as means of payment.
Seems to me like the fear is gone. More than half of Eurasia has partially ditched the dollar already in bilateral agreements. It’s over. That’s why America is getting so aggressive.
Johnny Mac
The last two days reek of disinformation. Who are these “Activists” that are feeding information to the Western press and, after Libya, why should we trust any information coming out of there. This whole thing stinks.
The Western press have a listening bias: they will listen to whoever tells them what they want to hear.
Maybe you should start a blog extolling the virtues of American interventionism, calling for more Arab springs, talking about the power of American and Israeli leadership on global democracy, talking about how Obama deserved the peace prize, and talking about the “necessity” of drone strikes in taking out bad people.
Then you could get ino Foreign Policy’s top 100 global thinkers.
Isn’t this the truth:
From a strategic point of view, they would be well advised to do so. That’s the message we’ve been unintentionally sending them for decades.
The US is a resource-rich nation. From the inside it may not seem that way because — unlike other nations — the American people do not own their resources. They pay retail for them on the open commodities market whether or not they are domestically sourced. Indeed, last year, the US became an oil-exporting nation because Americans are too poor to buy oil.
Oil is a good example. Ninety-three percent of the oil pumped in the world belongs to the people inhabiting the nations where it is found. It is nationalized. The profits from the sale of the oil funds social security, education, research, and infrastructure. In the 7% of nations where oil is not nationalized (the US and a handful of African nations — and most recently Iraq and Libya) oil is exploited by the remaining global oil gangs, like Exxon, who not only pocket the profits (above their cheap leases) but enjoy subsidies to cover the costs of exploration. A sweet deal.
I imagine Russia and China factor in, also, what happens to a nation’s resources after they are invaded by the US — in their decision to veto. As for the election of Islamicists in newly “democratized” nations — they are generally placeholders for the military industry and their designated Puppet. Nothing new here, really, if you’re taking the long view,
This is a scary fact. America gets the rough end of globalisation in the long run (after the sugar rush of consumerism wears off).
Fully endorsing the nationalisation of natural resources is a leap too far for me, in an ideal world I’d choose private (not corporate — if you make a loss you’re responsible for it) ownership without any subsidies, but the status quo of managerial corporatism and subsidies is kind of the worst of both worlds.
That’s a very curious dichotomy — not that I haven’t heard it before. Frequently.
So, as a nation, you’d turn your public lands and resources over to globalists for explotation and buy the resources you need on the open market (the American model). Rather than form a NOK (National Oil Company — the most common model among oil producing nations) and control your own resources and reserves, at cost.
And yet, you have this vision:
These realities exist at opposite ends of the scale. However, this is not a criticism at all. I have heard this expressed many times. Apparently this construct is manifest in the human mind, which suggests it could pop into existence as a working model at some point.
There seem to quite a few economic and practical ideologies out there right now that happen to clash with the laws of physics. It could be a new and useful phase of evolution for humans, for all I know.
Well, not exactly. I’m not a complete libertarian, but I generally prefer free markets, rather than statism, certainly at the Federal level (more on that below). And to be clear, I certainly don’t think the current state of affairs is a “free market” — it’s the worst of both worlds — a rigged “market” to favour corporations.
There are a few things I’d prioritise as a matter of urgent national security (mentioned above — energy independence, etc) but I’d prefer the Federal government’s role to be saying “this long-term strategic is what we need to achieve” and then letting private enterprise and local government achieve it however they find works best, because I really don’t want to get into the problems of a planned economy (capital misallocation, etc). I’d try to limit the Federal government’s role to creating the infrastructure, and maintaining a good business environment. Sometimes, the Federal government will have to do more but ideally, hopefully not.
There is a problem, I agree, with the “national wealth” of natural resources and energy being claimed by whoever extracts them, but on the other hand they do create jobs, and they do pay taxes. The trouble is, government has failed to properly allocate this money — rather than spending in useful domestic areas where government (for better or worse) has a monopoly e.g. infrastructure, education, etc the federal government seems to spend more on war and bureaucracy. This makes me sceptical that the government is capable in the areas it needs to be, particularly at the Federal level where there are the most lobbyists and the most corporatism.
On the other hand, as mentioned above, I am open to projects like the Bank of North Dakota, which manages the states’ oil wealth — and seemingly very successfully. I wish more states would adopt that model, because it does seem genuinely beneficial for all concerned, especially the state government, workers and private citizens who need access to capital. I think they probably will.
I still think the biggest problem is collusion between government and the corporations. The corporations can only get away with the things you mention because of government complicity, favourable regulation, barriers to entry, etc. I certainly think that the government needs to negotiate better deals for the mineral rights of government land so that the use and extraction of the resources really does benefit the wider community instead of mostly corporations and government insiders.
To some extent, this is central to the debate we are having in Australia. The old system involved mining companies paying royalties to states on volume mined, with company income tax on profits payable to the Federal government. Public ownership was used as an excuse for the Federal government to expropriate state royalties with the introduction of a Federal mining tax. In the end, they compromised (colluded) with the foreign owned mining companies and screwed the small local miners instead. So much for Australians sharing in their resources.
US and European supporting muslim brotherhood against secular nationalist governments will be a repeat of US supporting Taliban against USSR, it will come back and bite them in the ass.
Yep.
Susan Rice making veiled threats toward Russia and China:
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2012/02/04/intv-roth-rice-syria-failed-resolution.cnn
This has the potential for disaster. Zero Hedge reports that Syria contains a Russian naval base. Rice, Power, Obama, Clinton, Panetta, and all the gang are trying to force regime change in a Russian vassal. They want a domino effect, to bring pro-American regimes in throughout the region, including in Moscow and Beijing. Yet even in Libya and Egypt the new regimes have hardly been pro-American. The current regime seem like foreign policy amateurs. This would have been an embarrassment even to Bush and Cheney.
I hope other people find your write-up right here as helpful as I have.
Surely, the US Regime cannot be that stupid, backing the Islamists in Iran.
It is clear the Arab Spring was launched by Liberal/Left activism using platforms such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. The current election results where Democracy is free to elect representatives of the people, has delivered massive gains for the Muslim Brotherhood, who have been vocal of Caliphate for decades. This is why the Secular Nationalist dictators oppressed them, and were supported by the West.
1. Is the Arab Spring a revolution the West cannot control and they now urgently seek dialogue with the new Democratic regime, and must be seen to be supportive of any uprising to facilitate trust?
2. Or is this a plan to let Islamist rise to power to create a future “Battleground”?
We saw what happened in Palestine when Democracy was encouraged then used as an excuse to crush and oppress.
Perhaps this is why Russia and China are opposed. It is convenient for the West to groom future cannon fodder for an attack on China and Russia. Many sepratist states in Russia and China.
The egyptian muslim brotherhood has very close relation to Iran
http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/630336
http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/631406
Tunisia is now Islamist
http://www.theage.com.au/business/world-business/will-europe-yank-the-begging-bowl-20120206-1r0qz.html
Azizonomics has now reached Melbourne’s business blogs.
Islamists like the Islamic brotherhood are not religious at all, their concepts, theories and worldviews are rooted in the European Enlightenment pattern.They fit into the Western cannon.
see:
http://www.islamagainstextremism.com/search.cfm
Sayyid Qutb And The French Connection: The French Catholic, Social Darwinist Doctor That Influenced Qutb’s ‘Jaahiliyyah’
Sayyid Qutb Brought Leninism To Contemporary Takfiri and Jihadi Groups
Sayyid Qutb, Marxist Socialism and the Leninist Revolutionary Vanguard
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This has thrown a spanner into the propaganda machine:
http://www.theage.com.au/world/alqaeda-sides-with-protesters-in-syria-20120213-1t24i.html
Thank the Russians and Chinese for their Veto block. The Security Council rules are effective. Russia and China are correct. The situation is complex.
Mind you Assad’s minority ethnic/religious group will be persecuted if he loses power.
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