2 posts tagged “george friedman”

on the way to the garden

the garden is breathing out the air of paradise
today. i can sense myself, and this lively wine,
and this friend whose nature approaches the divine.

it's all right if the beggar claims to be a king
today. his tent is a shadow thrown by a cloud;
his banqueting hall is a newly sown field.

paradise is here in the simple tale that the may
meadow tells; the wise person lets the future
and its profits go, and accepts the cash now.

please don't imagine that your enemy will ever
be faithful to you. the candle the hermit lights
will always flutter out in the worldly church.

make your soul strong then by letting it drink
the secret wine. this rotten world has its own
plans to press our dust into bricks.

- hafez

Another piece by George Friedman of Stratfor called Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch? which provides a few tasty morsels for the inner geopolitical geek in us all. The whole concept of either Israel , US or both attacking Iran has fueled a great deal of speculation about what they are going to do and increasing instability. I think the article takes a more pragmatic look at what might going on and also hints at the inner conflict within Iran itself as it tries to cement what it perceives as a new hegemony in the region and how evolves as a nation. Also we see the flip side to Iran acting crazy from the previous post to Israel engaged in act of misdirection to keep the Iranians on guard and paranoid. The net effect of this is that it's doubtful anything will happen soon and will keep the fires of speculation going. This is one high stakes pissing match.

Finally, the Israelis and Americans might not be intending an attack at all. Rather, they are — as the Iranians have said — engaged in psychological warfare for political reasons. The Iranians appear to be split now between those who think that Ahmadinejad has led Iran into an extremely dangerous situation and those who think Ahmadinejad has done a fine job. The prospect of an imminent and massive attack on Iran could give his opponents ammunition against him. This would explain the Iranian government response to the reports of a possible attack — which was that such an attack was just psychological warfare and could not happen. That clearly was directed more for internal consumption than it was for the Israelis or Americans.

We tend toward this latter theory. Frankly, the Bush administration has been talking about an attack on Iran for years. It is hard for us to see that the situation has changed materially over the past months. But if it has, then either Israel or the United States would have attacked — and not with front-page spreads in The New York Times before the attack was launched. In the end, we tend toward the view that this is psychological warfare for the simple reason that you don't launch a surprise attack of the kind necessary to take out Iran's nuclear program with a media blitz beforehand. It just doesn't work that way.

behind the curtain none has found his way
none came to know the secret as we could say
and each repeats the dirge his fancy taught
which has no sense - but never ends the lay

- omar khayyam

I get John Mauldin's newsletter and a few days ago it contained a piece by George Friedman called The Geopolitics of Iran. I highly recommend people take the time to read it to get a nibble of Iran and the way it is. I'm not really going to provide much commentary since I have nothing insightful to really say but I think the second last paragraph hits the nail on the head.

"Iran is secure from conceivable invasion. It enhances this security by using two tactics. First, it creates uncertainty as to whether it has an offensive nuclear capability. Second, it projects a carefully honed image of ideological extremism that makes it appear unpredictable. It makes itself appear threatening and unstable. Paradoxically, this increases the caution used in dealing with it because the main option, an air attack, has historically been ineffective without a follow-on ground attack. If just nuclear facilities are attacked and the attack fails, Iranian reaction is unpredictable and potentially disproportionate. Iranian posturing enhances the uncertainty. The threat of an air attack is deterred by Iran's threat of an attack against sea-lanes. Such attacks would not be effective, but even a low-probability disruption of the world's oil supply is a risk not worth taking."

Sorry just a little bit of side commentary. You can stop reading if you have better things to do.

It's the second point that is Iran's real weapon. They are goading the US or Israel into attacking because it helps them recruit more people into their proxy wars and covert operations. They are willing to sacrifice infrastructure if it will help create more support not only in Iran but also elsewhere in the shia community. We tend to forget that Iran has an insanely young population who mostly want to be western (seriously talk to some young iranians). The mainstream media always focuses on the extremists (including the government) and never the regular people because they don't make for good news stories. An attack would ensure that some of those young will become radicalized thus helping the current regime just like they were in the late 60s and early 70s. While Iran may have very little love for Israel they can't be completely stupid. If they did attack Israel it is almost guaranteed that they will be wiped out by Israel's own nuclear capability which doesn't all reside in Israel. I am going to invoke the chewbacca defense and say this does not make sense. Unfortunately it seems like some kind of confrontation will happen and it's exactly what Iran wants. Diplomacy is the only way out.