qadaffi

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Kinetic Peace Action #2

Following NATO’s war in Libya, hawkish commentators have been salivating over the prospect of more “liberal interventionism” in the middle east.

Now, thanks to the Arab League, they might just get their wish.

From Zero Hedge:

Yesterday we reported that the Arab League (with European and US support) are preparing to institute a no fly zone over Syria. Today, we get an escalation which confirms we may be on the edge. Just out from CBS: “The U.S. Embassy in Damascus urged its citizens in Syria to depart “immediately,” and Turkey’s foreign ministry urged Turkish pilgrims to opt for flights to return home from Saudi Arabia to avoid traveling through Syria.” But probably the most damning evidence that the “western world” is about to do the unthinkable and invade Syria, and in the process force Iran to retaliate, is the weekly naval update from Stratfor, which always has some very interesting if always controversial view on geopolitics, where we find that for the first time in many months, CVN 77 George H.W. Bush has left its traditional theater of operations just off the Straits of Hormuz, a critical choke point, where it traditionally accompanies the Stennis, and has parked right next to Syria.

The point, I think, is that the Arab League and NATO would be very happy to see Iran’s wings clipped through regime change in Syria. I’ll be absolutely clear: I think that this is an attempt to get Iran to directly intervene in Syria, and get their fingers burnt by a humiliating NATO counter-offensive. The preferred outcome would be a resurrection of the Green Revolution, a bringing of the Arab Spring to the streets of Tehran, and regime change.

I don’t think Ahmadinejad is that stupid. He long ago absorbed the lessons of Saddam Hussein (now confirmed by the demise of Qaddafi). As I wrote last month, these are:

  1. Nuclear weapons are an essential prerequisite to holding off NATO-sponsored regime change.
  2. Western nations and organisations — including NATO, the United States, Britain, France and the UN — cannot be trusted.

Ahmadinejad would not respond. Iran is preparing for the coming Israeli-NATO onslaught, and doing everything in its power to urge China and Russia to heavily discourage any such move. China and Russia — strong Iranian trade partners (and to some extent ideological partners) — already have a strong interest (energy and resources) in resisting regime change in Tehran.

But this is all part of a greater game: America and the West are locked in a proxy war with the Eurasian autocracies (Pakistan, Russia, Iran, China — for short, the PRICs) for both Eurasia’s huge resources and manpower, and global military and financial supremacy. American policy is to retain the petrodollar-standard, and continue enjoying the free lunch such a system yields.

Iran’s fall could give America — as heavily indebted and zombified as America is — a significant boost toward retaining primacy in years to come, and scare the other autocracies into compliance. For that reason, Russia and China — who have gained a very strong position through accumulating American currency, and become hubs of global trade — will not be keen to see further American encroachment into their back yard.

Forward-thinking readers are urged to get a copy of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s masterpiece The Grand Chessboard, and study it.
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Qaddafi’s Legacy

Colonel Qadaffi — a consummate eccentric — leaves many legacies: stunning artificial rivers, tortured dissidents, state-sponsored terrorism, golden statues & palaces, legions of gun-wielding female bodyguards, dark stains on solicitous Western leaders, and what was (before the invasion) by some metrics the highest standard of living in Africa.

Yet surely his greatest legacy will be the impact that his deposition and death will have on paranoid dictators around the world and their ongoing hunt for nuclear arms. There are many differences between North Korea and Libya, but the fact remains that there has been no “muscular humanitarian intervention” with nuclear-armed North Korea, even while North Koreans starve. Kim Jong-Il has treated the West with contempt, issuing nothing but threats. Qadaffi frequently courted the West, and even parked Libyan assets with Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan. And ultimately Qadaffi — who by all measures did more for his people in terms of infrastructure, raising the standard standard-of-living, and upholding individual liberties than Kim Jong-Il — was slaughtered in the street after a NATO-backed invasion.

Eurasian despots will take two lessons from this:

  1. Nuclear weapons are an essential prerequisite to holding off NATO-sponsored regime change.
  2. Western nations and organisations — including NATO, the United States, Britain, France and the UN — cannot be trusted.