06-21-2019, 07:06 PM
(06-21-2019, 01:51 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 21-Jun-2019 Situation in Iran after drone shot down
mps92 Wrote:> Aren't we going to talk about the situation in Iran?
> The way Trump handled the situation was brilliant. By approving
> the attack but calling it off at the last minute, we avoid war but
> the Iranians understand that conflict is never off the table. It
> looks like the report was leaked deliberately. Absolute genius.
> Trump is also showing that he's not the trigger-happy maniac
> that's just waiting to push the button. He gave Iran the benefit
> of the doubt by assuming that the drone was shot down by some
> foolish, overeager, swashbuckling Iranian officer against the
> wishes of the Iran govt.
> As John has stated, unnecessary and risky decisions by officers
> can easily start wars, even if neither govt wants conflict. Let's
> just pray that Trump is aware that Iran should be our ally instead
> of our enemy, and aware that the China-Pakistan axis is the real
> threat.
What's happened with Iran in the last 24 hours is absolutely
breathtaking.
If that whole scenario was accidental, then Trump is very lucky that
nothing went wrong.
But if you're right that Trump masterminded the scenario -- and that's
certainly quite possible or even likely, given his past successes with
foreign policy scenarios -- then you're right that it was brilliant.
Trump is a pathological risk-taker as one would expect of a narcissist bordering on a sociopath. Occasionally a sociopath takes a risk nobody else would dream of and gets away with it. Thus the sociopath is brilliant. Think of what a darling of the financial world Enron was about five years before its collapse. After the collapse, many of the key figures were easy to prosecute for severe violations of the law, and the perpetrators were no longer credited with brilliance. But this said, the mobsters who seem to pull off the Perfect Crime as a rule are not brilliant people. Eventually they slip up, getting killed by a fellow mobster or getting caught in the maws of law enforcement and the legal process.
My experience with legitimately-brilliant people is that they are cautious -- perhaps because caution is necessary in law, medicine, engineering, and scientific research that attract such people. Recklessness is not worth the reward, and in some areas of scientific research it can get one killed. In law or medicine, recklessness can ruin a reputation.
I am not convinced that Donald Trump is brilliant; instead I think that he has gotten away with much that few of us would dream of doing.
Quote:I've never believed that the US and Iran were headed for war. Iran is
in a generational Awakening era, and has a history (since the
humiliating defeat in the Anglo-Persian wars of the 1800s) of avoiding
an actual war. Doing abductions and terrorist acts, whether through
Hezbollah, or exploding oil tankers or shooting down drones, is
exactly the style of Iran, especially since the 1979 revolution. That
way, Iran can gain the benefits of performing acts of war, while
maintaining deniability. ("We didn't do anything. There's no
evidence whatsoever." We hear this all the time from Russia.)
Abductions? If someone did a terrorist act against China and got to the United States, I would not be surprised that the perpetrator would be abducted or killed. After the whacking of Osama bin Laden, no place -- not even Langley, Virginia (home of the CIA) -- is a safe haven for a terrorist. (I am satisfied that the United States would turn over a wanted terrorist or war criminal because it has done so even with the Soviet Union, so hiding anywhere in the US would be moot). China has put the squeeze on Thailand and Laos to turn over pirates who murdered Chinese merchant seamen on the Mekong River (which by treaty is international waters).
I can't imagine Iran blowing an oil tanker out of the water. Iran has as much interest in free access to the world's shipping lanes in view of its biggest export (crude oil) and one of its biggest imports (gasoline -- Iran has no refineries). Iran exports crude oil to India, which sells gasoline back to Iran.
Quote:Trump, on the other hand, through his knowledge of Generational
Dynamics that he learned through Steve Bannon, understands that Iran's
hostility is only in the old hardline geezers, who are opposed by the
growing younger population that are anti-hardline and pro-West, so
Trump does not want to turn Iran's younger population against the
United States.
Figuring that Donald Trump gets most of his information through the spoken word (not characteristic of a brilliant person) instead of through the written word (which is more typical of a brilliant person), he may have been exposed to generational theory through Steve Bannon. People can read into generational theory whatever they want to that fits core beliefs on anything else; thus a neo-Nazi might interpret the culmination of a Crisis Era into some "RAcial HOly WAr" and a Commie might see a Crisis Era as the most likely time for a failure of capitalism that results in the optimal time for a Socialist revolution.
I am not sure that the dominance of 'geezers' in the political elite of Iran will go away. The power to determine what legislation is possible and what is not based upon an interpretation of holy texts at one's whim and to wax fat from corruption can always attract people groomed for roles in the entrenched elite. The people in real power in Iran are not the generational cohort of Khomeini any more than the leaders of the American entertainment industry are the generational cohort of Billy Wilder and Bob Hope.
Quote:So there was never going to be a war or, if one begins, it will fizzle
quickly.
Trump said that he was going to strike 3 radar stations, but held back
since 150 people would be killed. The Iranians claim they could have
shot down an American spy plane with 8 people, but held back. So both
sides are signaling that they don't want war.
Could it be that the Iranian leadership is more concerned with its survival? Could it be that the current leadership of Iran has things too good to risk, and no longer believes that their revolution is no longer some inevitable wave of the future? On the other side of the northern hemisphere, could it be that even the economic interests most aligned with President Trump (the fossil-fuels industry) has its own concerns with the supply of oil? Higher prices maybe inadequate compensation for a breakdown in supply. Besides, the American and intelligence services and the Armed Services have their own byzantine bureaucracies to protect. Senior military officers have been around long before President Trump, and the middle-ranking ones of promise expect to be around after Trump is gone. They do not wish to risk a military catastrophe, let alone be connected to war crimes or crimes against peace, just because the current President is a reckless risk-taker. Our senior military officers and spy chiefs live very well.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
