Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

** 31-Dec-2019 World View: US Dollar Reserve Currency

richard5za Wrote:> As a results of agreements at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944
> the US dollar became the reserve currency of the world giving the
> USA substantial economic advantages. With the strong physical flow
> of gold to Asia, and especially China, over a period of many years
> now, a speculation has developed that at some point the Asians
> would launch their own reserve currency to reduce their dependence
> upon the US dollar.

> The logical economic consequence would be a weaker US dollar. Gold
> would increase in dollar terms.

> And the value of USA stocks would reduce simply because the
> dividends are lower in terms of global currencies.

> If the PE ratio was say 12 then one would expect a correction not
> too far away from the currency depreciation. However at current
> levels it would create a crash. So as a matter of speculation
> this, or even serious talk of this, might be the catalyst for the
> next crash. I wonder if 1944 is significant in terms of
> generational theory?

The dollar didn't become the reserve currency because a piece of
paper was signed in 1944. It was the other way around. A piece
of paper was signed in 1944 to reflect the reality that the dollar
already was de facto the reserve currency.

It seems every year for the last 20-30 years, someone has been talking
about replacing the dollar as a reserve currency -- Iran, China, the
euro, etc. That would be like trying to replace the Titanic with
a rowboat. The US dollar has far too much mass and momentum to be
replaced in any time span less than a few decades.

For the same reasons, it's very unlikely that the dollar will
significantly weaken in the face of a stock market crash or global
financial crisis, since a weaker dollar would affect the rest of the
world as much as it would affect the US. What is much more likely is
that the dollar will remain relatively stable, but the value of US
stocks and bonds would collapse. I could imagine a scenario where the
dollar retains its value but becomes a crypto-currency.

Once the Singularity occurs, the dollar crypto-currency could be
managed by our computer overlords.

[Warren Dew]

(12-31-2019, 11:38 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Iran and Iraq are still in a generational Awakening era, and the most
likely scenario now is that these anti-embassy attacks will fizzle
fairly quickly.

And if they don't, the US is in a crisis era, and won't roll over meekly the way we did in 1979.

[Warren Dew]

(01-01-2020, 10:46 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: It seems every year for the last 20-30 years, someone has been talking
about replacing the dollar as a reserve currency -- Iran, China, the
euro, etc.  That would be like trying to replace the Titanic with
a rowboat.  The US dollar has far too much mass and momentum to be
replaced in any time span less than a few decades.

It's not just figurative "mass and momentum", either.

The US has the only navy capable of guaranteeing sea lanes world wide.  While we currently guarantee them for everyone, we don't have to do that.  I could easily imagine a situation where the US tacitly permits pirates open season on nondollar trade.

China is currently trying to develop the capability to protect her own transport lanes to Europe.  However, that's not sustainable, because China has no domestic need for more than a coastal navy.  Even if Xi manages to build a blue water navy, the next leader, or the next, will decide it's a waste of money and take it out of commission.

The US, however, needs a blue water navy capable of controlling most of the world's oceans - north and south Pacific, north and south Atlantic - just to keep its own coasts connected.  Once that navy exists, it's relatively easy for the US to patrol all of the world's oceans, and reap the benefits of controlling the world's reserve currency.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 02-Jan-2020 World View: Uighur gravesites

tetmo Wrote:> CNN reports on more than 100 Uyghur gravesites and tombs in China
> appear to have been destroyed.

> https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/01...kg-vpx.cnn

As I keep repeating, after hearing "Never again!" for decade after
decade after decade, it's absolutely astonishing to me that there is
massive genocide and ethnic cleansing going on by the Chinese in East
Turkestan, by the Burmese in Rakhine, and by Bashar al-Assad in Idlib.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 02-Jan-2020 World View: Navies and reserve currency

(01-01-2020, 12:48 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > It's not just figurative "mass and momentum", either.

> The US has the only navy capable of guaranteeing sea lanes world
> wide. While we currently guarantee them for everyone, we don't
> have to do that. I could easily imagine a situation where the US
> tacitly permits pirates open season on nondollar trade.

> China is currently trying to develop the capability to protect her
> own transport lanes to Europe. However, that's not sustainable,
> because China has no domestic need for more than a coastal navy.
> Even if Xi manages to build a blue water navy, the next leader, or
> the next, will decide it's a waste of money and take it out of
> commission.

> The US, however, needs a blue water navy capable of controlling
> most of the world's oceans - north and south Pacific, north and
> south Atlantic - just to keep its own coasts connected. Once that
> navy exists, it's relatively easy for the US to patrol all of the
> world's oceans, and reap the benefits of controlling the world's
> reserve currency.

Relating the currency to the two navies is an interesting way of
looking at it.

I've done several dozen articles on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
and each makes me feel more strongly that China is vastly overextending
itself.

Kenya is a good example. Kenya is caught in a debt trap, and is in
danger of losing Port Mombasa to the Chinese. Even worse, the
way the one-sided contract was written, the Chinese could take almost
any Kenyan asset in lieu of debt payments, even Kenyas embassies in
other countries.

On top of that, the Chinese workers loathe the Kenyan workers in
Kenya, and pay themselves huge salaries out of the money that China
lent to Kenya, and forces the Kenyans to take menial jobs in their
own countries.

It's amazing. The Chinese lend Kenya the money. Kenya uses the money
to pay the Chinese workers, who spend it on their own Chinese
businesses in theor own Chinese enclaves. Kenya has to use the money
to purchase parts and equipment from factories in China. So China
lends the Kenya the money, Kenya sends the money back to China in the
form of salaries and equipment purchases, and then still has to repay
the money to China, along with exhorbitant interest, or else lose
their ports, infrastructure and assets.

This is happening in country after country. China is spending a lot
of reserves with all these BRI projects -- money that they won't give
back -- and also is overextending its navy. Furthermore, they're
pissing off a lot of people in a lot of countries, and they are going
to target Chinese families in Chinese enclaves. Remember the "ugly
American?" At least we don't think we're the Master Race, and
everyone else is a barbarian. The "ugly CCP" is much worse.

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-02-2020, 07:09 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 02-Jan-2020 World View: Uighur gravesites

tetmo Wrote:>   CNN reports on more than 100 Uyghur gravesites and tombs in China
>   appear to have been destroyed.

>   https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/01...kg-vpx.cnn

As I keep repeating, after hearing "Never again!" for decade after
decade after decade, it's absolutely astonishing to me that there is
massive genocide and ethnic cleansing going on by the Chinese in East
Turkestan, by the Burmese in Rakhine, and by Bashar al-Assad in Idlib.

Meh, whatever,  pot , kettle black.  

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2008/03...-worth-it/

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-01-2020, 10:44 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 01-Jan-2020 World View: America's Manifest Destiny

(12-31-2019, 03:03 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: >   From the post above this one...

>   ** 31-Dec-19 World View -- American airstrikes on Iraq's Kataib
>   Hezbollah provoke international fury

>   Uh, sounds like some sort of Shiite payback to me. Btw, I think
>   the 1979 hostage situation was due to the US./UK coup in 1953.
>   The US should just fucking leave the Mideast. We've trashed the
>   place enough already and I'd reckon lots of folks there just
>   totally hate us.  

As I described in my book on Iran, Iran's 1979 civil war was triggered
generationally by the 1890 Tobacco Revolt, the 1905-09 Constitutional
Revolution, and the 1963 White Revolution in which Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini was exiled.  During all this time, the UK, Russia and later
America were bogeymen that various Iranian politicians blamed for
their own failures.  If the 1953 CIA coup played any part in that, it
was a small part of a large tableau.

It's laughable that you blame the US for trashing the Mideast.  As I
showed in my book on Iran, the Mideast has been trashing itself, over
and over and over, for millennia.

One thing I've discovered in 15+ years of developing Generational
Dynamics is that there are very few people in the world who hate us --
maybe some Palestinian groups, maybe some African black liberation
groups, maybe some anti-American hate politicians within the
Democratic party, maybe a couple of other groups -- despite the "ugly
American" stuff you read in American media.  Most people in the world
admire America and Americans, and many would love to come to America
and become Americans themselves.  Most of the vitriolic criticism of
America, and lately of Trump, is from politicians who are using it for
their own domestic political goals.  It's always easy to blame America
for any problem in the world, when a politician doesn't want to admit
his own stupidity.

As for withdrawing from the Mideast, or from the world, I do get
asked this question reasonably frequently, and in fact was just
asked a similar question in the Generational Dynamics forum.

There are practical reasons why this is impossible.  One is that
Israel is an important ally.  So is Egypt.  And we're committed to
providing security to Saudi Arabia so that the Saudis can provide the
world with oil.  Those commitments cannot simply be abandoned.

And the news today is that Trump is sending 700 more troops into Iraq
to protect the American embassy.  So withdrawing from the Mideast is
little more than a fantasy.

But it's more than that.  As I've written in the past, there are a lot
of people, in America and in the world, who believe in American
Exceptionalism, and who truly believe that America has a moral
obligation, or even a Christian obligation, or even an obligation
dictated by God, to fulfill American's Manifest Destiny, and to do the
right thing, and they would not consider withdrawing from the Mideast
or the world as the way to do the right thing.

In fact, you can see this dynamic in the Mideast today.  Trump said he
wants to withdraw troops from the Mideast and he's gotten howls of
outrage and criticism from pretty much everyone -- Democrats,
Republicans, liberals, conservatives.  He's still being criticized
constantly for reducing the number of troops in Syria after ISIS was
defeated.  There are many people, like yourself, who would like to see
America withdraw from the Mideast and just let them "trash" each other
without American involvement, but withdrawing from the Mideast is just
impossible, as it would be inconsistent with America's Manifest Destiny.

1. Yup,  I think American Exceptionalism is stupid, arrogant and delusional.  This is because whatever happy talk the MSM is up to, the US has deep, structural problems.  I can name some of them.  The US healthcare system is a nothing but a worthless grifting scheme.  Little wonder lifespans are falling.  The US workplace is a hellhole. That is one reason folks are turning on to mind altering chemicals.  If I had to work at Amazon for example,  meth might be the only to keep up with their pace.   Now let's take a look at sacrifice zones.  There are polluted or ruined places due to extreme weather and neoliberal policies.  Among these are not cleaned up superfund sights, places like Flint, Appalachia, Baltimore, almost any inner city, fire ravaged / blackout places in California, the rustbelt, etc.

And of course climate change is gonna be the threat multiplier threat from hell.  Just look at Australia now.  Wow, man it gives a whole new meaning to burn! baby! burn.

Of course you're right John.  I despise globalism and the US empire.  



https://youtu.be/ni9rncx8ceA

[John J. Xenakis]

** 02-Jan-2020 World View: American Exceptionalism is stupid

(01-02-2020, 07:56 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: > 1. Yup, I think American Exceptionalism is stupid, arrogant and
> delusional. This is because whatever happy talk the MSM is up to,
> the US has deep, structural problems. I can name some of them.
> The US healthcare system is a nothing but a worthless grifting
> scheme. Little wonder lifespans are falling. The US workplace is
> a hellhole. That is one reason folks are turning on to mind
> altering chemicals. If I had to work at Amazon for example, meth
> might be the only to keep up with their pace. Now let's take a
> look at sacrifice zones. There are polluted or ruined places due
> to extreme weather and neoliberal policies. Among these are not
> cleaned up superfund sights, places like Flint, Appalachia,
> Baltimore, almost any inner city, fire ravaged / blackout places
> in California, the rustbelt, etc.

> And of course climate change is gonna be the threat multiplier
> threat from hell. Just look at Australia now. Wow, man it gives
> a whole new meaning to burn! baby! burn.

> Of course you're right John. I despise globalism and the US
> empire.

> https://youtu.be/ni9rncx8ceA

Yeah, look at the Midwest dust bowls of the 1930s for another example.

Well, I disagree with pretty much every sentence you've stated, but
right now I can't think of anything to add to what I've said in the
past. Maybe I'll be in a bitchier mood next time, but right now
there's actual important stuff going on in Baghdad.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 02-Jan-2020 World View: US airstrike kills IRGC leader Soleimani

• Gen. Qassim Soleimani (when he was alive)

Gen. Qassim Soleimani, Iran's most important military figure, and head
of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as killed in an
airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport. It is presumed that
it was an American airstrike.

The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a top Iraqi military
figure, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the
Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq.

This will be a major shock to the hardline geezers at the top of
Iran's government, who have gotten used to making attacks on Strait of
Hormuz vessels, Saudi Arabia oil refineries, and American bases, and
getting away with them with no response.

So this time there was a response.

This has not yet been confirmed by President Trump or the Pentagon,
but Senator Chris Murphy, the so-called "Mideast expert" on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted:

Quote:> "Soleimani was an enemy of the United States, that is
> not a question. The question is this: reports suggest, did
> America just assassinate, without any congressional authorization,
> the second most powerful person in Iran, knowingly setting off a
> potential massive global regional war."

So Murphy, whom I've repeatedly described as the stupidest person in
the Senate, is accusing Trump of knowingly trying to start a world
war. Why do these idiots keep getting quoted? The tweet was quoted
on al-Jazeera with no comment. Al-Jazeera seems to love repeating
stupid quotes from Murphy, apparently to illustrate to the Arab
audience how dumb the Americans are.

Anyway, the attacks on the American embassy in Baghdad fizzled within
a day, but the massive anti-Iran protests in many cities in Iraq are
continuing.

Al-Jazeera is saying that the death of Soleimani will be a major loss
to the IRGC and to Iran, as

Soleimani has led many military actions, especially in Iraq and Syria.
He was also a fighter in Iran's 1979 Great Islamic Revolution civil
war.

The story is developing.

---- Source:

-- Qassim Soleimani / Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis / Iran’s Gen. Soleimani
killed in airstrike at Baghdad airport
https://apnews.com/5597ff0f046a67805cc233d5933a53ed
(AP, 2-Jan-2020)


---- Related:

** 1-Jan-20 World View -- US sends troops to Baghdad to defend embassy from Iranian rioters
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e200101


************** UPDATE 21:30 ET:
Al-Jazeera is reporting that anti-Iran protesters in Baghdad are
celebrating Soleimani's death. This is absolutely no surprise,
except to anti-American idiots.

************** UPDATE 21:50 ET:
The Pentagon has just confirmed the airstrikes.

************** UPDATE 22:03 ET:
Massive celebrations and expressions of joy in Tahrir Square,
Baghdad.


************** UPDATE 22:15 ET:
Soleimani's death is a major shock in Tehran, where he was revered and
considered to be almost invincible. In contrast to Baghdad, people in
Tehran are crying.

************** UPDATE 22:22 ET:
Mike Pregent, a Trump advisor, appearing on the BBC:
- This will give Iraq a chance - the Iraqi military can push
back against the Iran forces.
- One of the options presented to Trump last week was to kill
Soleimani
- The reason the protesters are cheering in Tahrir Square is
that it was Soleimani who approved the killing of peaceful
anti-Iran protesters.

[Warren Dew]

Wow. Trump doesn't mess around. Hope he's ready for serious attempts on his own life.

Unfortunately for Murphy, the IRGC is a designated terrorist organization, so the strike is covered by the AUMF.

[John J. Xenakis]

(01-02-2020, 10:23 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Wow. Trump doesn't mess around. Hope he's ready for serious
> attempts on his own life.

> Unfortunately for Murphy, the IRGC is a designated terrorist
> organization, so the strike is covered by the AUMF.

I don't think we need Iran for that -- I'm sure he's already been
preparing for serious attempts on his life by Democrats.

[Warren Dew]

Any thoughts on where this will go? If Iran is in an awakening period, the country won't support prolonged fighting against the US. Will the IRGC and the various militias formerly managed by Soleimani try to extract revenge with attacks on US forces, or will they not even attempt that?

I can see it accelerating the generational turnover in Iran, so it's looking like your prediction of Iran becoming a US ally has some hope.

[pbrower2a]

(01-02-2020, 11:48 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Any thoughts on where this will go?  If Iran is in an awakening period, the country won't support prolonged fighting against the US.  Will the IRGC and the various militias formerly managed by Soleimani try to extract revenge with attacks on US forces, or will they not even attempt that?

I can see it accelerating the generational turnover in Iran, so it's looking like your prediction of Iran becoming a US ally has some hope.

I hate to be cynical... but if you thought that the Vietnam War was a disaster, then wait until you see a war with Iran. America will have no allies in such a war; if you thought that America was becoming isolated in its diplomacy in recent months, then wait until you see how things go.

This will be the most productive war that America has had in a long time -- in sending American soldiers back in body bags. Iran is a dangerous power with a ruthless regime armed to the teeth. This is a country with a larger population than either Germany, Italy, France, or the UK... and with leadership ready to commit its youth as cannon fodder. Iran has the  means of doing to the American Armed Forces in a few months what the slow-moving disaster in Vietnam took ten years to achieve. 

I have my view of Donald Trump as a leader of a nation at war, and I will save the language for the late General Norman Schwarzkopf in his assessment of Saddam Hussein:

"As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a great military strategist,  nor is he schooled in the operational arts,  nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that he is a great military man, I want you to know."

As a political leader:

To be sure, Trump is not going to lead troops in the field, but as a top leader of a nation in a Crisis War, he is neither a good politician, nor a great unifier of a people in need of a shared purpose, nor is he able to offer any semblance of a coherent argument for any costly and unsettling cause. He is not a Churchill, a Lincoln, an FDR, a Mannerheim, a Juarez, or a Bismarck even if he is part of the sort of generation whence such leaders come for any country in about every eighty years, someone capable of transforming unwelcome carnage into a noble cause. Such leaders may not have wanted war, but they got it, and they handled it well. Personal glory? Only after the fact. 

All that he has been able to do is to appeal to bigotry and greed, which are good motivators early... (Look at all the profits that can go to war profiteers, including to those who supply the body bags!)... 

America is deeply divided, and many Americans would see a war into which Trump bungles as evidence of a callous incompetence. Many might think it a diversion from the consequences of his gross misconduct as President. 

...Most liberals, and I am no exception, see John Bolton as a nasty warmonger... but even he seems to recognize the situation as too dangerous for his taste. He can see Democrats winning in November and recognizing the necessity a year from now of turning over war criminals, including Trump, to the Hague Tribunal. As shown in cases involving Rwanda and Yugoslavia, the Hague Tribunal has a freakishly-high conviction rate. Bolton sees that, I believe, as a risk unworthy of taking. 

.................................................................................................

I cannot now afford a newspaper subscription, so I have not lifted anything from editorial pages. What the late General Schwarzkopf said is public domain because he said it while in service to the US government.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 03-Jan-2020 World View: Iran's threat of retaliation

(01-02-2020, 11:48 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Any thoughts on where this will go? If Iran is in an awakening
> period, the country won't support prolonged fighting against the
> US. Will the IRGC and the various militias formerly managed by
> Soleimani try to extract revenge with attacks on US forces, or
> will they not even attempt that?

> I can see it accelerating the generational turnover in Iran, so
> it's looking like your prediction of Iran becoming a US ally has
> some hope.

There's been a lot of hysterical bluster coming out of Iran for the
last 12 hours, calling Americans monsters, and promising retaliation
leading to destruction to America and Israel. Blah, blah, blah.

There's no doubt that Iran's geezers want to retaliate, and it will be
interesting to see how they do that. They're almost completely
boxed in. Their military playbook for years has been covert attacks
on Americans and on Saudi assets, and in funding terrorist groups in
the region. Then they always step back back and blame it all on
America and Israel.

I listened to one Tehran pundit last night list one event after
another in the last 40 years, and it was amazing how he blamed every
on America. He even blamed the 1979 Islamic Revolution on America.
It was an amazing tour de force.

The point is that Iran always maintains deniability. If Iran
attacks an oil tanker in the Gulf of Hormuz, they deny having anything
to do with it, no matter what the evidence.

So what kind of retaliation are they going to try now? Will they maintain
deniability, or will they make an overt attack on American assets?
And if they do, where will they do that? In Iraq?

And that brings us to Iraq. Soleimani was an Iranian hero of the
Iran/Iraq war. Soleimani may be beloved in Iran, but he's hated
in Iraq, because he killed lots of Iraqis, and continued to kill
Iraqis in terror attacks since then.

The Iranians are saying that America has violate Iraqi sovereignty.
In fact, America is there at the invitation of Iraq, at least to
help remaining ISIS cells. Iraq got burned when America left
Iraq in 2011, in that ISIS was in control of 2/3 of the country
by 2014, so the Iraqis don't want to go through that again.

But the Iraqis are also telling Iran not to violate Iraqi sovereignty
by attacking America on Iraqi soil.

So we know that Iran is going to retaliate, but they have very few
choices. Maybe cyber. Maybe fund Hezbollah to do a terrorist act
somewhere in South America. Maybe an IRGC attack on American assets
in Syria. So Iran has plenty of choices, but few of them are more
than symbolic. We'll just have to wait and see.

Once again, it's important to remember that Iran and Iraq are in
generational Awakening eras, and both countries ae facing large
anti-government and anti-Iran protests. It's not America, but it's
these protests that are frightening the hell out of Iran's hardline
geezers, and they will be more worried about how any retaliatory step
against Americans will affect those protests.

Soleimani was a war hero in Iran, so the streets of Tehran are filled
with anti-American protesters, but that's only temporary. When that
fervor ends, the Iranian people will still be living in poverty, and
will still hate the hardline geezers that they've been protesting
against for years.

There will NOT be a war between American and Iran. But as Ive said
many times, a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia at some point is
certain.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 03-Jan-2020 World View: Online news

(01-03-2020, 02:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > I cannot now afford a newspaper subscription, so I have not lifted
> anything from editorial pages. What the late General Schwarzkopf
> said is public domain because he said it while in service to the
> US government.

It sounds like you're about as financially desperate as I am. But you
really don't need a newspaper subscription, since there are a lot of
free media online. You might focus on the BBC, since they have good
international coverage, and they're almost as far left as you are, so
that might work for you. You can read the news at bbc.co.uk, or you
can listed to the BBC World Service.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 03-Jan-2020 World View: China vs Iran

Both China and Iran have evil, malevolant governments -- the hardline
geezer survivors of the 1979 civil war in Iran, the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) thugs in China. And so it would seem that the two are
very similar.

But we can see some dramatic differences that follow from the fact
that China is deep into a generational Crisis era, and is highly
nationalistic and xenophobic, while Iran is in a generational
Awakening era, with a deeply split population, where the young people
are pro-American and pro-Western and want the hardline geezers to be
gone. Imagine if you can, Dear Reader, what would happen if Trump
ordered a drone strike to kill a high-level Chinese military official
as he was traveling in Korea or Taiwan. China would already have
warplanes and missiles in the air. That's what a country does in a
generational Crisis era.

But Iran's reactions are much more subdued. They have lots of pundits
and politicians screaming anti-American statements and threatening the
destruction of America and Israel -- but that's what Iran's pundits
and politicians have been doing for 40 years years anyway. There's no
change. Iran is much more worried about anti-Iran protests in Iran
and Iraq. Worrying about protests is what a country does in a
generational Awakening era.

But China and Iran do in fact have some similar objectives. Neither
of them wants a war with the US unless absolutely necessary. But they
both want American forces to leave their respective regions. The CCP
thugs want American forces gone so that they they have a free hand to
invade and annex Taiwan, and to invade Japan and get revenge for WW II
by colonizing Japan and enslaving the Japanese. Neither of those are
possible with American forces in the region, ready to oppose Chinese
forces.

Iran's hardline geezers want Americans gone so that they can complete
the "Shia crescent" -- replacing the Ottoman Empire with a new Persian
Empire, taking control of Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, pushing
Israel into the sea, and developing nuclear weapons. American forces
in the region are blocking all these objectives. So both China and
Iran just want America, the "Policeman of the World," to disappear and
stop policing.

The speculation continues wildly about how Iran will retaliate.
Various officials in other countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon
-- are expressing the hope that Iran will not retaliate on the US in
their countries, and any Iran attack on American in one of those
countries would violate that country's sovereignty.

Some speculation is that Hezbollah will conduct some terrorist attack
against America and Israel. Hezbollah is already poor, because of the
anti-Iran sanctions, and weak from having fought for years in Syria.
At any rate, America and Israel are always ready for a Hezbollah
terrorist attack.

One reason that Iran is boxed in is because it has been conducting war
against the United States for years, and has done so with no response,
with impunity. Here are some of the things that Iran has done lately
to attack the US and allies:

• Shooting down a US drone with a surface-to-air missile
  over the Strait of Hormuz in June.
  
• Multiple attacks on oil tanks in the Persian Gulf and the
  Sea of Oman
  
• Attacking Aramco oil refineries in Saudi Arabia
  
• Months of artillery attacks on American bases in Iraq,
  finally killing an American on Friday.
  
• Attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad. This is generally considered
  to be an act of war.

So they could repeat these kinds of actions -- which wouldn't even be
a change from what they've been doing anyway. Or they could violate
another country's sovereignty (Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan).

China, in a generational Crisis era, could attack and not worry about
the consequences. Iran, in a generational Awakening era, is very
worried about anti-Iran protests in Iraq and Iran, and would worry
that any attack could backfire on Iran.

So now, as the screaming and outrage against America's assassination
of Soleimani starts to fade, attention will turn to international
criticism of any actions that Iran takes in retaliation.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Peter Zeihan pointed out that the Iranians have been acting stupidly-poking the U.S. in the eye, when the U.S. military has been vacating the Middle East.

The Iranians could have just waited.

[Tim Randal Walker]

BTW, what is Japan's generational constellation at this point?

[John J. Xenakis]

(01-03-2020, 02:30 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: BTW, what is Japan's generational constellation at this point?

Japan and the US are pretty much in parallel since the end of WW II.

[pbrower2a]

(01-02-2020, 11:43 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(01-02-2020, 10:23 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   Wow. Trump doesn't mess around. Hope he's ready for serious
>   attempts on his own life.

>   Unfortunately for Murphy, the IRGC is a designated terrorist
>   organization, so the strike is covered by the AUMF.

I don't think we need Iran for that -- I'm sure he's already been
preparing for serious attempts on his life by Democrats.

We don't need any martyrs on the Other Side. Trump already has his personality cut fully intact. How long will it last? If we are fortunate it will last about as long as that of Francisco Franco after his death. That one dissipated quickly.