The Deadly Art of Precipice Dancing
Iran on the Precipice
The consensus among the sources I most regularly consult appears to be that if Israel has not yet attacked Iran then it soon will do. If it does, then opinions are divided as to whether it will be a modest, calibrated escalation or something much more existential.
I am inclined to the former for several reasons:
a cautious, calibrated attack by Israel on Iran is more likely to yield only a cautious, calibrated Iranian response;
Israel may be incapable right now of a major assault, short of nuclear, given the difficulties that I referred to in my previous post of conducting a major launch against such things as nuclear energy facilities and given the fact, one that Israel itself regularly refers to, namely, that its resources are spread over fighting a war on seven fronts;
while the US appears incapable of not supporting Israel with an infinite flow of lethal missiles - assuming that Israel is, in any meaningful sense, actually in the driving seat - it will likely counsel restraint, particularly restraint in the use of nuclear weapons, an especially wise counsel given the closeness of the alliance between Russia and Iran, and China’s dependence on Iran oil and gas;
Finally, I would note that Israel is already attacking Iran by attacking its allies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the West Bank, the Houthis in Yemen as well as regularly attacking all manner of targets in Syria and Iraq. Not only attacking, in the sense of military targets, but every day murdering large numbers of civilians and causing even larger numbers of excess death from illness, starvation, wounds, despair and the rest of it (I would place the overall total now as well in excess of 200,000), as well as massive population displacements. We should also note, with all the horror and revulsion that it deserves, that of all the violent deaths a very large percentage, often cited at around 70%, are the deaths of children and women.
Iran so far appears to believe that somehow everything is fine if it is only its own co-religionists and military and political allies in other countries that are being hurt just so long as Iran itself is not being directly hurt. This could be prudent, it could be cowardly, it could be both, and right now it is extremely difficult to know. But I cannot help but feel that Iran is far too caught up in mimicking Western performances of “gentlemanly” diplomacy instead of reacting appropriately to the satanic Maniac in its living room.
I note reports that there are some voices in Iran that are now urging upon the Supreme Leader the necessity for Iran to revise its theological objection to the use of a nuclear deterrent. I also note confirmations that Iran could very quickly move from its current level of uranium enrichment to the development of full nuclear warheads. Iran already posseses nuclear-capable missiles. There has been little follow-up of reports over the weekend of a possible Iranian nuclear test. I am not inclined to give these much credence.
Israel on the Precipice
For the time being the US-backed thug in town turns out to be a maniac on the rampage, but just so long as the US successfully accomplishes its 2002 foreign policy objective of supression of any threats, anywhere, to its hegemony, the US is perfectly content with any kind of horror by any kind of thug on its payroll. In time, if Israel survives to the point that it appears to be a dominant but truculent cut-out for US power then, at that point, but not sooner, the US (if it has survived that long) will pull Israel down, perhaps by retooling its ties to the Saudis or even Iranians.
The only logic apparent in Netanyahu’s behavior is the logic of Zionism that I believe simultaneously seeks the effective expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank and the extension of Israel into large areas of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria into parts of Iraq and Iran. Zionists are in a hurry to keep ahead of the demographic reality that very soon, Arabs in Israel will outnumber Israelis. This is not to say that it is at all unusual in apartheid systems for a minonity to rule, crushingly, over a majority. I would like to say that it is a formula that rarely lasts but then I look at the continuing dominance of Hispanic and European classes over the indigenous across the Americas.
Nevertheless, were Israel truly to expand according to the logic of Zionism it would presumably have to rule over many more Arabs and Persians, Sunni and Shia, than it currently does. And they would include the Palestinians that were expelled from Gaza and the West Bank. Because they would have been conquered or forced to accede to very obviously puppet powers, they would indeed represent an even more hostile population, than the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. And we have to get our minds around the 11 million Palestinians in Jordan.
And where will Israel look to help it populate these newly acquired territories with friendlies? Co-religionists from Africa, to form an intermediate layer (as in the case of the Coloreds of apartheid South Africa’s division into Whites, Coloreds and Blacks)? How will it now defend itself against Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. And why on earth would the US, even a Blinkenized US, be comforable with any such final product?
Ukraine on the Precipice
For so long as the US and Russia engage, both vocally and in their behavior (e.g. US agreement with Germany to place intermediate nuclear capable weapons in Germany that can strike Russia - a clear violation of a treaty that according to Ted Postol (see below), if I understand him correctly, the US long ago smashed but which Russia continues to try and observe) then both parties are enhancing the dangers of accidental nuclear war, if not actual nuclear war.
A tuning down of the theatrics of nuclear power would be of great benefit to the world right now. MIT’s missile expert Ted Postol frequently tries to remind the world that the US has an advantage over Russia in terms of warning systems. So far as I understand the issue on the basis of his most recent address (and I will try to provide more detail soon) it has mainly to do with the lack of direct “look-down” capability of Russian satellites, and the horizon-bounded limitations of its ground-radar system.
Some months ago, Ukrainian drones and perhaps even an ATACMS missile, revealed the vulnerability of Russian nuclear warning radar (temporarily blinding Russia from receiving notification of US launches to the South, as would be the case if the US fired on Russia from US nuclear submarines in the Indian ocean or, perhaps if the US fired on Iran from the Mediterranean), further increasing the advantage to the US. With almost no chances whatsover for a rational conversation between the time of noting an attack and responding to it, Russia must rely on predetermined automated responses. I have yet to see a source that can tell us exactly how those automated responses are set.
The next almost inevitable escalation up the nuclear escalation ladder will be NATO’s Ramstein meeting of the leaders of 50 countries, if the meeting actually survives the cancellation of Biden’s planned visit to Berlin on Thursday this week. Biden appears to be pulling out so as to better respond to the threats and aftermath of Hurricane Milton, where he will doubtless remind Americans of the fecklessness of American response to domestic environmental crises because it has sent so much of its wealth to Ukraine. If Ramstein does indeed proceed in any sense then one decision that it may very well take has to do with the use of cruise missile launches from Ukraine on targets in mainland Russia.
In the meantime there are indications of Ukraine/NATO preparedness for just such launches, once again, on Crimea, helping explain recent Russian attacks over the entire Odessa region on targets that are thought to have received and host a recent uptick of missiles incoming from NATO countries. Ukrainian strategy has long focused on spectacular, ultimately failing, bids for headline attention so as to maintain the flow of aid from the West.
Swirling around Ramstein the chattering classes talk about unworkable peace plans of which one, perhaps gestated from within NATO itself, is just another “frozen conflict” solution, dressed up in the form of ceding some territorial gains to Russia (accounting for 20% of the original landmass of Ukraine) that would not be acknowledged by NATO nor, for the time being, be challenged by it, while Ukraine (or the large 80% rump of it) would be given NATO membership and, hence, “Article 5” security (although that all NATO members would allow themselves to be trapped by the call of an Article 5 emergency is open to doubt).
Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s support for this proposal endorses its stupidity.
The proposal has already been rejected by Zelenskiy, who is still clinging to his own peace proposal that would in effect require a total Russian surrender. Russia’s own position, articulated by Putin in the summer and recently recast by his foreign minister Lavrov, is that Russia remains open to negotiation provided that Ukraine declares its neutrality from NATO and withdraws all its forces from Kherson, Zapporizhzhia, Dontesk and Luhansk, and engages in a process of negotiation whose starting point would not be less than the draft peace agreement signed by Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul in March-April 2022, an agreement that was sabotaged by Boris Johnson on behalf of the NATO powers when he persuaded Zelenskiy to withdraw from the process in return for Western weapons.
Istanbul 2022 would only be the start. It would therefore include Ukrainian commitment to neutrality; Ukrainian agreement not to allow the positioning of NATO forces or weapons in Ukraine; measures of demilitarization and denazification; acknowledgement that Crimea and the Donbass oblasts of Kherson and Zapporizhzhia are Russian.
It is not clear, at least to me, what an Istanbul + agreement would add to this original list. Lavrov has specified the removal of all Western sanctions on Russia, a thoroughly good idea that would likely be of great benefit to both Western and Russian market capitalism, although it is possible that this condition too was present in the original 2022 version of Istanbul. Putin typically reaches for relatively conservative positions in the end, but I would hardly be surprised if Russians to his right would be vexed were Istanbul + not to include demands for the handover, also, of all territory east of the Dnieper, including Kharkiv (which to my mind sounds militarily necessary) and possibly, even, Kiev and Odessa or parts of these.
Russia is looking for a permanent solution and will not settle for less, in my view; it is prepared to wait for as long as it takes. Ukraine, under its current leadership, would rather be totally defeated than to give in, and would accept nothing less than that Russia pulled back all its forces. NATO just wants to look as though it has won. Its financial viability and public relations credibility depends on an insane strategy of infinite expansion (doubtless to embrace Japan Prime Minister’s call for an Asian NATO, and the Quad). In this endeavor not only do the organizational boundaries between NATO and the EU grow fuzzier, but the most militant voices within each (e.g. Poland, the Baltics States, Finland and Sweden) are awarded disproportionate influence.