Race to End the World

 

How the world, the civilized world of mankind, would end used to have a singular premise, nuclear war between the two competing socio-economic powers, democratic freedom and communist totalitarianism. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and other developments that paradigm has been grotesquely been altered making the world a far more dangerous place. Communism still exists and threatens the world though that threat emanates from North Korea, China or possibly a renewed Soviet threat or even little Cuba. The world has changed so much that within a decade or so China may become the second most populous nation behind their most serious historic rival, India. The potentials for an utterly destructive war are racing towards the world at a dizzying pace and we will try to touch on a few of the most obvious rivals for being credited with such destruction.

 

The most obvious from recent news actually is North Korea which is claiming to have miniaturized nuclear weapons making them easily produced and able to be placed atop ballistic missiles. North Korea has been working on those missiles as well. One cannot credit North Korea as the sole threat as Iran has been developing the missiles openly and many predict continued working on their nuclear aspirations without so much as missing a beat after the farce of an agreement which was signed and approved by the P5+1, Russia, China, France, Great Britain, United States and Germany, but was never ratified or signed by Iran, an oversight we are sure. Some have pointed to this inconvenient fact to claim that Iran is just as close to developing deliverable nuclear weapons as is North Korea. Both Iran and North Korea share more than their love affair with nuclear weapons and the missiles with which to deliver them, they share the nation both list amongst the most likely they would attack with their first launches, the United States. From there they diverge.

 

Where after the United States Iran lists Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, most of the Sunni nations and finally the rest of the non-Islamic world; North Korea lists South Korea, Japan and then whomever refuses to bow to any demands they may make which would make China and other nearby nations as being at the greatest risk. Because of these threats it appears that we can soon forget about containing nuclear proliferation making a nuclear war all the more likely. The world still has one pair of nuclear armed nations facing off against each other with a distinct probability to entering another war and it will only take one misidentification of a launch to start a smaller but equally deadly nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. Should those two tangle, there is less of a chance for that to spread beyond the destruction of both nations though some reports place the southern third of India still beyond Pakistani missiles. Also, despite the Pakistani nuclear research assistance program of Professor Abdul Qadeer Khan selling the secrets to making nuclear weapons to anybody willing to pay, this was largely closed down and Pakistan and India are not likely to share such technology though it is rumored that Pakistan has a deal with Saudi Arabia to provide them with plans plus some actual weapons should this be deemed necessary by Saudi leaders.

 

That brings us to Iran and their nuclear program. Despite the reports that Iran has ceased their nuclear research and production, there remain nagging reports contradicting this story line. Whatever spins one puts on the situation with Iran, it becomes evident that they will become a nuclear power within the coming decade. This threat to their many nations in their neighborhood could easily spark an arms race with such nations as Saudi Arabia having funds sufficient to produce copious numbers of nuclear weapons and many of the Gulf States are equally financially capable of similar development not to mention also capable of financing other nations developing weapons such as Jordan and Egypt topping that list and Turkey a little further down. Israel is already an undeclared nuclear power in their own right and equally nervous about the development of an Iranian deliverable nuclear device. The problem with Iranian nuclear weapons possession is their likelihood to use them even in the face of retaliatory strikes which would conceivably decimate the nation as their reasons for attacking are a religious directive just as much serving their political agenda to gain hegemony over the Middle East and then the Islamic world followed by the world. Their eventual aim is to make Shia Islam the sole religion on earth or die trying. It is their willingness, even desire to commit national suicide in the process which makes their threat so dangerous. The truth is their first strike could be a preemptive attempt at neutralizing the United States, which is technically possible, to inflict humongous damage even using simpler ballistic missiles with nuclear warhead atop, three or four to be used as EMP weapons placed such as to completely destroy all electronic transmission across the United States with the remainder taking out the largest twenty or more cities all from freight container ships fitted with two or three launchers each launching from off shore from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico leaving no city beyond reach. The following map holds true for any nations attacking the United States be it Iran, North Korea or anyone else as it lists the most desirable first strike targets.

 

First Cities To Be Struck in Attack Scenarios

 

Next would be North Korea who would likely use the same map as above as it applies to any nuclear first strike attempting to critically destroy the United States by eradicating their leadership and a great part of the population. Anybody listening to North Korean broadcasts within the impoverished nation would believe that South Korea with great assistance including nuclear attacks made by the United States was imminent and that North Korea was preparing for an all-out war with both nations at any moment. Needless to say, but these depiction always have North Korea intercepting or preemptively destroying any and all attacks from the United States and South Korea followed by devastating rebutting attacks completely wiping the United States from being capable of any further attacks and reunification of the Korean peninsula under the North’s just and powerful rule. The fears that North Korea will attack South Korea are still quite high but also the ability to prevent North Korea from all but eradicating Seoul in the initial burst in a first strike are impossible. The artillery sitting just north of the DMZ (demilitarized zone) along the 38th parallel are more than sufficient to destroy the city with conventional warheads. Add in missile attacks and even without nuclear weapons North Korea has an ominous first strike knockout capability.

 

Additionally, North Korea has made threats against another traditional enemy, Japan. The entirety of Korean populations, both North and South, remember the deprivations, cruelties and horrors of the Japanese occupation during World War II and this hatred is easily stoked as the national memory on this is strong. Japan had been simply a historic enemy but after World War II they became a detested and begrudged enemy and North Korean propaganda has made use of this to keep the attentions of the people from the misery and hardships of life in North Korea. Many experts have claimed that North Korea is not suicidal and thus would not attack anybody for fear of retribution. This overlooks a few pertinent facts. First is the fact of their having so little to lose with no real economy to speak of and starvation of endemic proportions. Secondly, their ruler, Kim Jung Un, has displayed a real lack of grasp of reality and has executed high ranking people for the slightest of errors in judgement or actions. He had an uncle executed with the rumored excuse that he posed a threat to Kin Jung Un’s continued rule and recently executed his Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol for the crime of falling asleep at a meeting which Kim Jung Un was chairing. Kim Jung Un has shown complete disregard for any loyalty or discretions in limiting his power and is sufficiently unstable and unpredictable that he could easily begin such a conflict against South Korea, Japan or even the Philippines or the United States. Below is a screen shot from a North Korean propaganda video depicting just such an attack in a very simplified but unmistakable way of attacking the United States with the image of Kim Jung Un ever-present in the top right corner.

 

North Korean Propaganda Image Depicting
Nuclear Strike on the United States

 

Another potential nation for whom a war would not be a completely foreign idea is China. Their economy has weakened and is showing signs of actually falling, something the leadership cannot afford as they have promised the vision of Nirvana with an ever growing and prosperous nation. Needless to point out that such a dream is an impossibility even if you control all forms of media, which China does not quite have as many Chinese have found means of cruising cyber space and the Internet. Totalitarian control of cyberspace is all but impossible as the Chinese leadership can attest despite their attempting to run their own version hoping to keep their populations from such temptations as can be found online. Their main reason is to throttle ideas and prevent freedom of information. Still there are Chinese bloggers who do get the word out to those interested in finding such. China is feeling their oats and attempting a power play in the South China Sea attempting to control this waterway which is vital to Asian trade and control the Japanese lifeline to the coal and oil they need for power generation and other usages. This also threatens Japanese, Vietnamese and Philippine claims to islands with which they have been contesting ownership with China for years and almost sparking open warfare over these possessions. Chinese and North Korean threats have caused Japan to reconsider their Constitutional pledge against having an army and other forces sufficient to conduct a war even in defense which they insisted upon after the devastation visited upon them at the end of World War II with Tokyo as well as Nagasaki and Hiroshima completely devastated and in ruins along with much of Japanese infrastructure and manufacturing. Japan as well as South Korea has held high level discussions in their respective governances to enter the nuclear club and develop their own weapons stores. Both nations are easily technically capable in order to produce first rate thermonuclear devices and not just nuclear weapons. This would place their effectiveness on a par with the standing nuclear powers and could place them on a road to surpass France and Britain and become contenders in the top five nuclear powers on the planet. This would definitely have ramifications down the line and would be another major blow to containment and nonproliferation. Of course one of China’s first strike enemies is the United States and any attack by Iran, North Korea, China, Russia or anyone else on planet Earth need to remember and remember well, there is a last strike capability the Americans possess which cannot be knocked-out attacking the United States mainland and even if one included Hawaii and Alaska, and the boomer looks like this right before they are loaded with their death dealing cargo of twenty-four missiles.

 

Nuclear Powered and Armed Last Strike Capable
Submarine with Twenty Four Missiles
Each With Multiple Warhead Capability

 

But nuclear weapons are not the only threat which is facing mankind. We are slowly but inexorable working to make our species insufficient of competing with our own creations. Sure we control our machines and computers today, but what about tomorrow and that tomorrow is not that far off where they no longer require our assistance to improve and construct themselves? We are rapidly approaching a point after which there is no turning off the switch. We already have computers which with software can design robots and other computing systems but the machines cannot write new and imaginative code, for that they require human interface, for now. What happens once they can write their own code and improve their own designs? What happens once the machines design the machines? Within a year or two of that eventuality, and our scientists will cross that threshold within our lifetimes unless you are near death’s door already, the machines will be so far advanced that we will not recognize or even understand their code and they will probably, for their own safety, have invented their own code structures making them writing code in a language humans do not understand and cannot decipher. Additionally, Russia, and we can assume China and the United States amongst others, are already designing autonomous reasoning robotic warriors deciding who is the enemy and who is friend to fight their wars augmenting their human forces. That will be a short step from replacing their human forces. Robotic armies, does that bring up any bad movie plots? How about Cylons of Battlesar Galactica and the second series where the advanced Cylons were almost impossible to differentiate between them and their human counterparts where the chain had gone full circle and the machines made by humans were now making humans. What do you do when the machines are superior to the humans who made their first free-thinking forefathers and now the machines are making their own humans which are born full grown and with developed minds, personalities, character traits and numerous models such that they can infiltrate and appear as any other person until their activate code has them commit whatever act they were programmed to commit, destroy a base, a warship, a star cruiser or a commander, all depends on the subroutine activated. There are the Terminators from the Arnold Schwarzenegger films of that name. Terminators, Cylons, NS-5 robots, or Johnny-Five, (see below) it does not have to even be a threat initially, it is the potential which even Johnny-Five showed great ability and would have been in their armed mode as displayed in the movie. Of course the initial combat robot will be far more Johnny-Five than Terminator though Cylons may not be far behind. Once the machines have been used to design and uplink code into combat robotic soldiers they will have this capability and designs within their collective data memory and when they begin to manufacture their own robotic warriors they will be generations ahead of even Hollywood’s imagination and equally impossible to stop or fight against in a conventional manner. Our best bet is at some point to program into their base core programs that we are, if nothing else, a pitiful but amusing bunch to keep around for entertainment factor and as a warning to do better when they reach their pinnacle and before they introduce whatever lifeform replaces them, and do not think for a moment that the human race will not eventually build robotic machines which will not only be capable of replacing us but soon thereafter far exceeding anything we could even imagine. We had better hope they like us and do not see us as a waste of resources, which is a definitive possibility. Making warrior robots to fight our wars, that is such a great idea, not.

 

The Robot Threat has Many Faces

 

As seen here, we are well on our way to extinction and it is just a matter of what shape the world will be in when we have departed. Will it be a nuclear ruin, a robotic heaven, a slag heap of gray goo, or a zombie apocalypse; choose your favorite. The concept we need looking into the future is a simple one based on the adage, hope for the best, plan for the worst, and expect something out of the blue as we likely cannot even begin to understand the threat which will erase our kind though we know no matter what, with the knowledge we have of physics we are doomed unless we find something remarkably unbelievable and likely unimaginable in our time. Meanwhile we will continue to allow leadership who not only plan end of the world scenarios but figure out ways that they at the very least will survive. Nothing like leaving the best to repopulate the world, imagine a world consisting of politicians and their closest friends and families, and families are debatable. Excuse us as we check our bugout bags which need to be assembled and readied for some time in the hopefully far future. Are we ready for the future people with more brains than common sense are going to invent for us in which to survive? Probably nowhere near ready nor can we really ever be. Meanwhile, we are going to order that flying car the politicians and scientists keep promising they are almost there in building them. We thing they are just teasing us and they have them for themselves stashed away for the after world, the world that whatever monsters they design leave us. Between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who do the Americans believe is sane and healthy enough to withstand what is coming? We will know in approximately eight long and agonizing weeks, providing both candidates’ health withstands the pressures.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Our Feckless World

 

The escalation of the Islamic world’s war is against those who are insufficiently pure in their Islam practices and are not as obedient as desired or worse, not a worshipper of Allah and Muhammad and the true chain of the roots of Allah’s path from Abraham through Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant which she gave Abraham so he could produce an heir, a son. This son was Ishmael, who eventually fathered the progeny from Abraham and Hagar, presumably producing Muhammad, thus spawning Islam many centuries later. This new religion of Islam was supposed to be a furtherance of the Judeo-Christian lines and bring peace and one final message for humankind by which to live in peace and harmony, or at least that was how it presumably started. After being rebuffed, scorned and thrown out of Mecca, Muhammad went to Medina where the prophesy continued and changed its flavor and methods as Muhammad gained power rising to rule in Medina as a great warlord with a crushing force at his disposal. This force assisted his vengeance on Mecca for its treatment of Muhammad and the rest is history. The Quran took on a different tone which some have cast as “conquer the world for Allah.” A somewhat deeper explanation can be read starting with Which Quran, Mecca or Medina? and followed up after that brief summary from a wealth of information added by numerous readers in the comments with links to other sites which range from commentaries on the Quran to different orderings of the Quran from traditional to chronological and more. Many of the worldly difficulties with the followers of the Medina Quranic verses which presumably, when differing from the Mecca verses, the later ones take precedence, has led to the Islamic State and groups like Hamas, Boko Haram and other terror enclaves in Afghanistan, the Philippines and beyond. What is often forgotten when discussing Islam is there are also a number of groups who live perfectly good Quranic lives giving what these other groups claim are abrogated sections of the Quran by the more aggressive, but these places remain open societies proving that there are peaceful ways and means which can be followed from the Quran and that it is all in how you implement the Quran and what you seek to gain from your experiences in Islam.

 

The Orlando nightclub slaughter, which is being portrayed in some circles as purely a hate-crime against the LGBT community, is being cast ignoring the Islamic roots of the shooter or actually intimating that he was a member of the Christian right and a fanatic and gun nut even more for gun rights than the NRA and Donald Trump type of supporter. This approach eventually ties in the violence which has broken out at any number of Trump’s campaign rallies. The small fact that this violence was almost always instigated by leftist protesters, many of whom had leftist backings, has been left out from the picture so as to tarnish Trump as the one causing the violence. That is simply political expediency and the horrors of the nightclub shooting is not about the United States race for the White House and rather about the race to club America into obedience of the Quran and adopting Islam as America’s sole religion. The same can be said for June 13; the Philippines government confirmed that Robert Hall, a Canadian citizen, was beheaded by the ISIS-affiliated Abu Sayyaf terrorist group who held him hostage since September 2015. Canada’s prime minister’s Justin Trudeau’s reaction was posted on his Facebook page. “Canada holds the terrorist group who took him hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder,” he said. Trudeau avoided mentioning the radical Islamic ideology espoused by Abu- Sayyaf, its affiliation with the Islamic State (a.k.a. IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, Caliphate) and previously with al Qaeda. The same problem has continued half a world away with the brutality of Boko Haram which also strikes at those not of Islam across a wide area in central northern Africa centered on Nigeria. These groups have increased their ability to recruit others locally as well as from a distance after their swearing allegiance to the Islamic State and their leader, the self-proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

 

Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
The World as the Islamic States Believes
It to Be with These Islamic Provinces Loyal
to Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and The World

 

The world view of Baghdadi appeals to these frustrated youths who are frustrated with their lives and see the world as imperfect and in need of cleansing. These so-called ‘Lone Wolves’ like the Orlando terrorist and the San Bernardino killer couple and the others throughout the Western World as well as within the Islamic World all believe they are following a true vision. The same vision goes for many of the terror groups which have spawned as a result or have joined with the Islamic State. All of these otherwise disparate groups desire to reach a standing in what they believe is the future of the world as the Western World is unworthy of continuing as the main power in the world. If it was not the Islamic State it would be whatever group is strongest and claims leadership over all Islam and the tip of the spear which will pierce the world for Allah. Meanwhile the Western World remains asleep and leaderless in this fight. President Obama has been approached through the United Nations to call for a concerted effort from the Security Council thus coordinating the fight against the Islamic State. Defeating the Islamic State will require a unified world effort as smashing it into a million pieces will simply produce a million emissaries to spread the hatreds of the Islamic State making it even more dangerous. What needs to be done is to destroy the Islamic State in one well-coordinated assault on its main bodies in Syria and Iraq not allowing for their forces to escape out into the world spreading this incarnation of evil even further.

 

The problem with getting such a unified effort blessed by the United Nations has long been President Obama’s insistence on the only way the United States could fully join the fight. President Obama has demanded that the United States work through the Security Council as well as the General Assembly before committing ground troops. This precondition has been repeatedly stated and the lack of a United Nations Security Council resolution requiring force be used and taken against the Islamic State is the one request which would allow for a coalition to be formed to fight the Islamic State directly. The strangest piece to this puzzle has been President Obama himself as the United States has blocked any cooperation in drawing such a resolution. This obstruction apparently centers around the fact that the resolution was drafted by Russia and does not give President Obama the lead position in the coalition. Actually it appears that President Obama is blocking any action being coordinated from the Security Council as the combined forces of the world would then be turned loose to obliterate the Islamic State in place not allowing it to disperse. A crushing defeat would take off the gleam currently perceived to be emanating from the Islamic State and Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi personally making him a figure that the other groups can utilize.

 

No one other than President Obama can claim to know what is going on in his head that he blocks the exact measures he claims he requires in order to fight the Islamic State and eradicate it in quick order. Perhaps it is because he would not be perceived as the sole leader who freed the world from this monster and the acts of depravity committed in his name. Perhaps he sees the Islamic State as a system through which the majority of the Islamic world can be rallied and actually start the next Islamic war on the rest of the world. Perhaps President Obama wants to leave all options on the table so if he is not instated as the next head of the United Nations he can aspire then to lead the Islamic State and become Caliph of the World. It is just odd that President Obama become the obstruction preventing the Security Council from passing the necessary resolutions to bring a singular united World to bear and that he claimed were necessary for the United States to step forth into the breach, so to speak.

 

Meanwhile the main forces actually striking at the Islamic State are halfhearted bombing by the United States and slightly more vigorous bombings by the Russians. Neither side appears to have their heart in fighting the Islamic State. Probably the one thing preventing President Obama from allowing the Security Council to step forward and take charge in demanding actions be taken against the Islamic State is he knows it would take far more effort and a huge American commitment in manpower and treasure to wage such a war. President Obama probably does not wish to entangle the rest of his administrative efforts into defeating the Islamic State as it would be messy and soldiers would unfortunately be killed and fighting the Islamic State which can hide in plain sight as they do not exactly wear uniforms and would be far more able to hide within a compliant civilian surroundings without raising suspicions. Entangling the United States into such a war would result it as being his legacy and President Obama is not going to go down as the President which got us into a deadly and seemingly futile Middle East War. President Obama would rather place the emphasis on forcing or destroying Israel and replacing it with a failed Arab Palestinian State. It would not surprise us if President Obama doesn’t place some degree of faith in the claim that the Islamic State is an Israeli Mossad action done so as to empower Israel into controlling the actions of a large sector of the Islamic world. Nobody other than the President knows for sure what he believes and what is driving his current reticence towards empowering the United Nations to act.

 

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is not exactly beating a bombing run or even a surveillance pass against the Islamic State. With the recent assault on Paris, the lone wolf attacks traceable to the Islamic State, one would expect to see a concerted effort by the Europeans to have used the European Union to formulate their response, but nothing. A warning should be sounding throughout Europe as an ominous date approaches, the celebrations of the ancient Battle of Badhr which is remembered and commemorated in Islam on the 17th of Ramadan. This year it falls on Thursday, June 23rd, beginning Wednesday evening at sundown of this week. The one thing that Islam does even better than commit horrific acts is remembering anniversaries of its greatest victories or its worst humiliations which it tries to erase with glorious victories. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War (the Yom Kippur War) began on the 17th day of Ramadan. The Egyptians code-named their surprise attack on Israel as “Operation Badhr” occurring on the holiest day in Judaism, Yom Kippur. That war had an optimistic beginning and would have been an even greater challenge and likely disaster had the battle lines been the same as they were before the Six Day War and many an Arab commander from that war blamed the fact that the world had not already forced Israel back into its box. That is part of the drive to force Israel back to the 1949 Armistice lines, the pre-67 Lines, as then they feel Israel can be defeated more readily.

 

But other than it is fighting the Infidel and making War for Allah, there is a complete disconnect between Israel and their troubles with its existence and the Islamic struggle to conquer the world, which currently means ultimately the United States. Where you will see Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezballah all make attacks on the rest of the world; they mostly channel their efforts against Israel. Granted that Hezballah is currently being embroiled in protecting Bashir al-Assad, as he has no real troops to call his own, almost every Nasrallah speech is about the coming demise of Israel and his quarter of a million rockets all aimed at Israel from top to bottom in Eilat. He regularly insists on mentioning their ability to hit Eilat despite it not being a likely target but simply to make the claim he can now hit anywhere in Israel. On the other hand there have been no real efforts by al-Qaeda or Islamic State though both claim to have operatives embedded in Gaza or with the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria (West Bank). The only activity ever taken up by Islamic forces outside those directly fighting Israel is the occasional attempt to break the Gaza sea blockade with some heavily advertised flotilla which despite getting huge buildups online results in nothing in reality.

 

The Islamic world has far more pressing problems than Israel at the moment and does not appear capable of repairing the breaches in its states. Lebanon and Iraq are functional basket cases with Syria so completely devastated that it is no longer a nation and more of a roiling pot of troubles masquerading as a civil war which is simply filling up an otherwise empty space with no semblance of functioning governance. Libya is no different and is largely Syria but toned down because even less care is extended in that direction and Islamic State in Libya has yet to take on the evil dimensions as its spawning parent in Syria and Iraq. Talking about Iraq, the main functioning governance there is Iran. For all intents and purposes the world may as well recognize a nation of Kurdistan and draw its borders extending across northern Iraq and including northeastern Syria. By declaring the Kurds as having their own nation it would be a good first step towards repairing the damages perpetrated on the Arab world at the end of World War I. Sykes Picot Agreement divided up the Middle East to represent European oil interests and nothing more.

 

Yes a couple of promises were kept but far more were ignored or intentionally broken, and a Kurdish State must top that list as it can be easily rectified and would allow for more places for a base against the Islamic State. A declared Kurdistan would also be such a slap in the face to al-Baghdadi that much of the Islamic State efforts would be shifted to solely taking out this Kurdish State and making the Kurds into a nation would give them an even greater ideal around which to dedicate their Thusfar heroic efforts. Granted Turkey would initially disagree and be completely against such as Erdogan sees himself as the next ruler of Syria incorporating it into a greater Turkey and the initial step to reestablishing the Ottoman Empire. Should the borders of Kurdistan be drawn liberally along its southern regions to include Mosul and additional lands in Syria it would not be a bad idea as this would provide room for the Kurds residing in Turkey, who would rather live under Kurdish rule, to emigrate. That would also signal to the Arab and Muslim world that the Western World realized the injustice it imposed on them at the conclusion of world War I with the cutting of tribes into two or more pieces and shoved warring factions together in a single nation with the direct desire to cause the kind of chaos now occurring though at a lower level but preventing any string forces to develop in the oil rich regions and surrounding nations. The time to repair that would be now after the terror wars are brought to a close and then the West needs to work with the interests of the region and not against them. First though is the destruction of the Islamic State as that is an abomination to any possibility of a peaceable Middle East, even a peace amongst the Arabs with one another.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Iran Destroying Sykes-Picot as World in an Israel Panic

 

France is planning a multi-national convention in order to force a solution on the Arab-Israeli conflict by, if necessary, forcing the formation of a new Arab state they would call Palestine. They would try to do this without any promise from the Arab leadership that this would end the conflict, end the demand for five-million or more Arabs be admitted into Israel swamping the Jewish state thus destroying her, end all demands for destroying Israel in stages and demand more land be relinquished by Israel, or end the violence and terror attacks. France is seeking to gather at least twenty other nations including the United States, European nations and whichever other nations might show any interest with one distinct nation excluded, forbidden might be more accurate. That excluded nation would be Israel as having Israel might actually stress and interject the problems and deficiencies with any plan which demands from Israel everything and asks nothing from the Arab leadership other than their promise to be nice and where accepting an answer of , “we refuse” would be considered an affirmation for proceeding. They would not require the Arabs to recognize a Jewish State, Israel’s right to exist, the freedom of Israeli public to continue to choose their own leadership or even to end terrorism and the launching of rockets into Israel. The Arab Palestinian leadership has already reserved the right to hold military drills with any nations they desire, import weapons from whoever was willing to sell them such including rockets and missiles, import heavy weapons such as main battle tanks and mobile rocket launchers, and develop nuclear weapons and warheads. The Arab Palestinian leadership has promised to endeavor for one item with a steady and consistent inclusion of any and all manner of facilitating overrunning the State of Israel and cleansing all the lands of those who are not Muslims or even judged to be sufficiently Islamic. And the French and their allies will find such only a minor obstacle and soon dismiss all difficulties or complete rejections coming from the Arab leadership as they will simply turn to pressing Israel to take huge risks and make injurious sacrifices entering into an open ended and incomplete treaty where Israel meets final conditions while the Arab side simply marks the occurrence as simply another step towards the eventual elimination of Israel. All of this, while the borders formed by the results of the last time Europe forced their will on the Middle East in the form of Sykes-Picot are dissolving in fire and bloodshed.

 

Meanwhile nobody appears to have learned anything from the Israel complete withdrawal from Gaza and the dangerous results. They all appear to be unable to correlate and equate the lessons from Gaza to the entirety of Judea and Samaria with their holding the high grounds which overlook the beating heart of Israel. The world also appears to be unaware of the disintegration of the Sykes-Picot agreement and the borders drawn up along with everything else resulting from the breakup of the Ottoman Empire apparently remaining calm as the redrawing of the borders from the Austro-Hungarian Empire (see map below), Germanic Empire, the Balkan lands and the rest of Eastern Europe appear to have survived with only minor conflicts thus far and hopefully time will not change this fragile stability. What is frightening is the alliance which appears to have been behind this disintegration and who is the leading player and who simply appeared to take orders and provide cover and facilitate the immobilizing of the world to defend or even relieve the disasters across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with a blithe disinterest and total disregard. Perhaps a quick summation of these problems might serve us well.

 

Austro-Hungarian Empire

 

The greatest representation of the world’s disregard and laissez-faire attitude of the world generally and the Western World led from behind, way behind, by the United States, towards the extents of Arab and Muslim nations and their citizens lives, which have all but dissolved into complete disarray and bloodshed, is criminal. The posterchild country for all that had gone wrong has been and will continue for some time to lead the rest is, of course, Syria. As far as functioning governance in Syria there is next to or absolutely no governance and where there may be a semblance of governing, it is done through force of arms and not any other legitimate form. Syria started as protests for Syrian strongman Bashir al-Assad to step down and be replaced with an actually legitimately elected leader. When Bashir al-Assad responded with force, the protesters ended up being replaced by separate and disparate terrorist groups. There were both Shiite and Sunni terror bands descended onto the Syrian countryside attacking the Syrian military forces which remained loyal to Bashir al-Assad as well as one another. The first climactic series of events which threatened to blow the entire Syrian civil war wide open started with the use of chemical weapons on civilians of his nation. These usages of these weapons of mass destruction was a direct challenge of United States President Obama who had threatened that such usage would cross a red line and bring a definitive response from the United States which would affect great consequences. After a couple of debatable usages of chemical weapons where the tests were determined by the White House to have actually been unconforming with the levels required for a clinical determination to be finalized and with a use of chlorine gas being determined not to be a chemical weapon of mass destruction because Chlorine was only an element and the White House had meant a manufactured agent not found naturally in its usable chemical compounds, they stalled even more. It soon became evident that the actually sanctioned nation from the Syrians resorting to gassing its own citizens was the United States. President Putin offered President Obama a way out with an offer to assist in the destruction of all of Bashir al-Assad’s chemical weapons stores. There has been evidence that not all of the compounds were destroyed and that amounts of chemical weapons stores may have been captured by the Islamic State and other terror groups including at least one al-Qaeda aligned group.

 

Another distressing location of failed governance has been Iraq. Here the Shia government, after the premature exit of allied forces, arrested the Sunni high office holders while the remaining Sunni and Kurdish representatives took the hint and fled. This left a core government which ruled solely over the most southern areas of Iraq while the Kurds are holding the North both in Iraq as well as Syria and the Islamic State had settled in the lands between these two groups. The failure in Iraq is troubling for American policy makers and White House communications office as they are tasked with shifting and spinning blame away from the Administration. Astonishing as it now appears, back in early 2010 Vice President Biden stated flat out that Iraq was stable and about to hold open, democratic elections and thus the United States was done and the troops were already scheduled to pull from Iraq. He further claimed that Iraq would very likely prove to be a central point in the legacy of President Obama. Surprisingly, we believe that Vice President Biden was dead on correct, Iraq will be a central policy choice of the Obama Administration and with its current ongoing disaster and growing chaos, well, let it suffice to say that we bet President Obama wishes he had never heard of Iraq. If it were not for the Kurdish fighters in the north, the Islamic State could have concentrated all their efforts southward and likely have taken the entirety of Iraq and be directly threatening Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and their oil fields.

 

 

 

 

Another location of a failure of the United States was in Yemen where the refueling docks which had been used by United States warships are currently no longer under the steady and complete control of the former government which was friendly with the West while the Houthi are threatening to greatly expand their territory and al-Qaeda was holding the southern end of the nation. The existing shipyards and fueling stations utilized by United States Navy are now in questioning hands making their utilization questionable at best. This is also an ongoing confrontation which, as far as we are able to gauge, with the regular government on the short end of the deal more often retreating than reclaiming lands lost to the Houthis. There is also sporadic violence in Lebanon as well with the largest contingent of Lebanese Hezballah militiamen are fighting alongside al-Assad’s forces in Syria. The point of interest which will require continued attention to detail are the actions of Iran in each of these national tragedies and is also sometimes working with Hamas and has shown signs of hoping to gain influence with Mahmoud Abbas, the Arab Palestinian Authority or at the least of Fatah directly or even the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

 

We need to understand a few realities about Iran, its topography, population distribution and political philosophy. Iran is split by a mountain range stretching from the north to the south running about one fifth of the way in from the western border. This range acts as a defensive barrier at the western part of the nation and also marks the divide between the more populous Persians in the center and east while the Arabs reside in the western edges. The oil fields are also in the west beyond the mountains. Iran is a Shiite nation run by the Supreme Leader, a cleric who is virtually all powerful and with the generals of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) run the nation partially through threats, intimidation, fear and some sense by the people that they mean every threat they make. The Iranian people are well educated and have many who receive high level degrees in the hard sciences in American, British and European universities. They believe that Shia Islam should be supreme in all of Islam and those who are not Shiites are apostates or idolaters depending on the day of the week, hour of the day and number of captives to be judged. Well, right, it is not that bad, yet. The Persian Iranian have no great love of the Arab people believing them to be lesser uneducated barbarians who are barely worth using for manual labor and are only good for murdering non-Muslims, especially Jews and Americans. The Persian Iranians who mostly run Iran desire to rule the Middle East as well as finally settle the Arab (Islamic) Israeli (Jewish) conflict. Their reason is they desire to reestablish their Persian Empire and more plus see themselves as the new and original Aryans. They even renamed their country in 1935 from Persia to Iran which means Aryan. They also believe that they should be the real and only true rulers of the world and are willing to take a thousand years to conquer the planet and convert every last soul to Islam, Shiite Islam, or return that soul to Allah for judgement and eternal damnation.

 

Black Triangle of Oil Wealth
Containing Over Half the Known
World’s Oil and Natural Gas Supply

 

Currently there is something the Arabs control that the Persians desire to control, the quarter of the oil which is the Black Triangle. This is the area (see map above) where all of the Middle East oil wealth, or at least very much of the Middle East oil and gas reserves, exist in this triangle. The triangle currently sits on lands stretching in the northwest in Turkey and Syria continues down through Iraq, Kuwait, into Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iraq, Qatar, and western-most Iran. With the Black Triangle existing almost exclusively in Arab lands and the levels traditionally of mistrust between the two peoples, Iran knew gaining control of the wealth of the Middle East was not going to be easy. The first impediment was that the majority of the Arabs were Sunni and not Shia. Fortunately the Shia ruled Syria at the beginning of the Iranian situation, Iraq had a predominance of Shiite Muslims and Saudi Arabia and the remainder were the problem one could and should put off for now. The real challenge was how to conquer the Arab world despite being vastly outnumbered. Well, remember that it was the Persians who invented chess.

 

The one split in the population which was as wide as the Grand Canyon was the Shiite-Sunni divide. This split had driven wars over the centuries. Iran has begun to use it once again and to great prevail. Iran has neutered Turkey by charm and guile and has promised Egypt in return for the same, peace in our time, and knows that Saudi Arabia who is hypersensitive when other people’s business encroaches on them or their protectorates so they play it close to the vest but one should still not press their luck. These are the playing fields. Syria promised the easiest place to pick a side and keep it as viable and oddly enough, the most vital place if Iran was going to keep open its crescent to the Mediterranean Sea. Both Iraq and Syria have proven a problem that with continued carnage would continue to serve the Iranian machine. As long as the problems scared the Europeans and the United States remained standing off in the distance, then Iran could continue her march to her goal. The triangle was currently broken into segments which nobody truly knew who owned what at the end of the day. Still, each day somehow was unable to swing the attentions of the Western World from their main obsession, what had Israel done which could be condemned today. Iran marches on across the Middle East maiming and murdering but nobody cared, but should Israel harm the hair on the head of a single Palestinian and war crimes tribunals are called into session. A war in Syria had murdered millions, but wait, Abbas has accused Israel of building a deck onto a Jewish house, the deck must be destroyed unless Israel should claim all the land by building decks onto settlements. Millions of refugees are fleeing Syria, but that does not matter unless there is a way to make them the problem of Israel. The Islamic State is destroying precious artifacts which are irreplaceable and destroying world heritage sites, wait, world heritage sites, those can be granted to the Palestinian State of the future just so they are never allowed Israel or the Jews to claim. Of course every site in the Holy Lands, be they Hebrew or Christian, they can be used to further the Palestinian claim as the indigenous peoples if only we grant them every last site. This is the picture of a world gone mad.

 

This is the desired and long sought Iranian Shiite Crescent across the Middle East reaching from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea after Islamic State Defeat and Iran Surge Retaking Syria for Bashir al-Assad with Hezballah retaining their iron-fist control over Lebanon and the Iraqi Shiites retaining their hold on the southern half of Iraq. This could very well be the starting positions for a final World War resulting in exchanges of nuclear weapons before the end is reached. This map also depicts the areas bordering the Iranian influence which could become the future red lines and the trip wire for a horrific conflagration, exactly what the Twelvers desire to bring back the Twelfth Imam and the Islamic Messiah who will lead them to finally realize their destiny of world conquest. Despite what many in the West view as an outdated and dead idea, the Iranian leadership dreams of world conquest and desire to that end.

 

Iran had a simple plan, bleed the Arab world dry and then simple blow the empty husks away and claim the prize. Pit one against the other, the Sunni against the Shia, both against the Kurds and all the while making sure that none triumphed who the Iranians did not control. The wars allowed Iran free access to southern Shia Iran and into the cauldron that was Syria with their old puppet al-Assad. Meanwhile they earned points with the Muslim Brotherhood though many found such so confusing as they were Sunni, how could their friendship help Iran? Well, they are the pipeline to Hamas and that allows for Iran to foment another crisis for Israel and for the world to worry over and conduct more inquiries. Iran knows the longer inquiries into the presumed sins of Israel continue, the longer they can play their bloody game of Arabic genocidal conflict. Who benefits from the war in Syria, the conflict in Iraq and the threats to Sisi in Egypt? At first glance one is tempted to say nobody and that is the obvious response. But looking deeper, and there is a story line here which reads that the Arab world must be set against itself, whenever there is the first inkling that the world is starting to understand, then some front must be agitated against Israel as a distraction.

 

Today the latest crisis is whether or not the United States will join the French initiative and give it weight. Why is this a story? It is a story because the French initiative which is a guaranteed non-starter as even Abbas will refuse to accept any peace as he needs the conflict in order to continue the money trains carrying billion and trillions of guilt monies pouring into his coffers far beyond any credible need. Will anybody ever do an investigation as to where the treasures poured into the Arab Palestinian cause flow to and for what purposes are it used? Such is as unlikely as is anybody realizing that Iran is sowing discontent and violence across the Arab Middle East simply to gain advantage and eventually form a greater Iran across their crescent and encompassing all the Middle East oil fields. Are they really that blind that they refuse to see? They will sit up and take notice once Iran controls the spigots to the Middle Eastern oil and turns the flow to Europe off. When Iran then demands five-hundred dollar a barrel oil as winter approaches and Europe faces freezing to death slowly or paying the price, the world will sit up and notice when another world war appears around the corner and this time the enemy holds one quarter of the world’s oil and all the nuclear weapons they could have built in a couple of decades.

 

And when numerous European capital cities lie as radioactive smoldering ruins, these nations will demand yet another panel to discern how all this is Israel’s fault. Europe is facing a slow death at the hands of refugees caused by Iran yet cannot escape their visceral hatred of Israel. Europe sits at the front of a crisis which they will not survive should Iranian schemes continue and they take control of the Saudi and Arabian Peninsula oil fields in addition to those they already control yet they obsess over Israel. Iran is quietly producing nuclear weapons for use against the United States, Europe and the Western world but the French are calling for a meeting of as many nations as are willing to force another failed state onto the Middle East map simply because this one guarantees the death of Israel. Wake up before it is too late. Israel poses no threat to any of you and simply desires to live in the region promised her and allow the rest of you to go your own path. Leave Israel be and tackle the real problems, but no, we understand, we are the Jews amongst the nations and as such you are hardwired to obsess over Israel. It is Israel, has always been Israel and will always be Israel and the Jews; otherwise we might go an entire generation without some fool rising up against us only to be destroyed. Why has the world never realized that obsessing over Israel and the Jews only brings ruination down upon your houses. Look at the history; it is not that difficult to see. All those kingdoms are vanished or soon to be and we are still vibrant and the leading force to bring light and invention into the world. We brought the world so much and ask nothing but to be let alone to continue to serve all mankind, but instead you and those before you decide that we must be crushed. Why? We are willing to bet that none amongst you can come up with an honest and real answer other than we are Jews. And you talk every day about racial hatred, Islamophobia, class warfare, the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer but never does one of you ask why there is still anti-Semitism and it is allowed throughout your world and your history and all the Jew ever did was give you the Ten Commandments, the idea a ruler should not enrich themselves on the backs of their people, the concept of a fair trial, the weekend, bar-b-que, and a moral and just society. We understand that the world may desire to continue after the model first attempted to be the framework for a society used by Sodom and Gomorrah and such is your choice, but please, for once just leave Israel alone, allow our children and people to live here in peace even if only here. Try it for a century or two and see how you like it. We’ll behave, we promise. Then, if you desire such, we will attempt to show the world a better way. Until them can we develop miracles to share with you in peace. Imagine what we would have invented if we were not constantly being warred against in one form or another by almost all the nations of mankind? Let us have peace as we use our word for peace as our greeting and parting thought as we simply say, Shalom.

 

Beyond the Cusp