Israel and the Iran Saudi Arabia Standoff

 

If you have been following the news in the Middle East there is one overriding story behind almost everything you read about whether it is mentioned or not; the standoff between Iran and Saudi Arabia, also called the Sunni Shiite Never-Ending War which has raged and subsided and raged and subsided repeatedly over the past fourteen centuries. So, let us take a short trip around a few of the hottest hot-spots in the world and peek behind the curtains to uncover some of the behind the scenes realities. Syria, Iran and Hezballah, the Shiite forces, are supporting/allowing Bashir al-Assad to rule Syria or at least be over Damascus and the western seaboard and the Israeli border; while Saudi Arabia supports the Sunni rebel forces trying to unseat al-Assad completely. Then there is the Islamic State which though Sunni is the orphaned freckled, red haired child nobody wishes to claim as their brand, and has been too eager and enthusiastic to embrace the extremes from the Quran and take them to extremes not seen and force them onto the world’s stage for inspection, revulsion and unfathomed attractive side which has swelled their following providing more troops and suicide bombers and women, many from Western nations, seeking to fill a gaping hole in their lives which defies rational explanation. In Yemen Saudi Arabia is supporting the former ruling Sunnis while Iran has provided the weaponry behind the meteoric swarming across Yemen by the Houthis rebels. In Lebanon, Iran has supported the virtual takeover by Hezballah while Saudi Arabia has supported the Sunni Arabs and by that indirectly some of their Christian allies. Hamas in Gaza has been reaping the benefits from two sources aiding their efforts with their natural ally being the Muslim Brotherhood which provides direct military assistance with arms, explosives and experienced trainers while Iran supplies arms, technology and monies keeping a southern front they can call into play to add a second front squeezing Israel between Hamas and Hezballah. Islamic Jihad is entirely supported through Iran which can be used to pressure Hamas to support any attacks under Iranian request knowing that they could always open the front without them and it would make little difference as Israel would still hold Hamas responsible. Egypt is allied behind Saudi Arabia simply because they realize that they have no friends in Tehran and should Iran defeat Saudi Arabia for sole hegemony approaching, if not surpassing Israeli conventional powers would leave Egypt in a difficult position. Iraq is another direct confrontation with Iran supporting the Shiite government in the south and Saudi Arabia supporting the remnants of the Sunni in central and eastern Iraq while Islamic State is dominant in Western Iraq and the Kurds solidifying their North Western Iraq positions with their North Eastern Syria holding and working to survive the Turkish airstrikes which Erdogan pretends that those strikes are against Islamic State forces. Then there are the fires burning in Libya where the Islamic State and al-Qaeda are vying against tribal forces who are fiercely independent and appear that some favor the similar fierceness they perceive in the Islamic State. Then there is Turkey who in many ways is the other wild card other than Egypt with one difference, Turkey would not mind an Iranian dominant Middle East rather than Saudi Arabia as they have had an off and on relationship with Iran never quite burning all their bridges while Saudi Arabia had no great love for Erdogan poisoning their relations thoroughly. The last actor and the thus far only nuclear power with ICBM capabilities but also the only nation which could cause all of these forces to ignore their individual hatreds and unite against which is why Israel is being very quiet and attempting by all means to sit idly on the sidelines of any potential breakout of open warfare. Does Israel have a preferred side? Probably, like Egypt, Israel had no love lost for Iran and would likely see Saudi Arabia as the lesser of two evils. Israel also had relations, though rather chilled on some levels and dependent on the Sisi Presidency and will remain dependent on who holds that office.

 

There are rumors which have been verified that talks exist between Israel and Turkey to resume more friendly relations by putting the Mavi Marmara debacle behind them. The leaks or intentional releases to the media by high placed officials or people with knowledge or any of the assembly of the usual suspects have pointed out that there exist some very insurmountable obstacles which could scuttle any deal. Then there has been the warnings sounding more like demands from Egypt warning against such moves by Israel. Part of what is driving the rapprochement has been the need by Israel of a route to deliver natural gas to Europe and Turkey being one of the more logical connections which would make such possible. Turkey has already natural gas lines leading into Europe from Russia and other Central Asian sources which any Israeli connection could be wed to and Turkey herself has need of an additional source of natural gas as their relations with Russia have taken a dive over downing of a Russian fighter jet for presumably crossing into Turkish airspace while on a mission in neighboring Syria. Further, Israel will require any deal not demand any sacrifices Israel is not ready to make as Israel also would not savor soured relations with Russia and Russia is a far more important friend and a far worse enemy than Turkey could even pretend to offer. Additionally, the talk that there is a Saudi Arabia oil pipeline deal being researched to allow Saudi Arabian crude oil across Israel and to one of the Israeli Mediterranean ports to be running as a secondary means of getting Saudi Arabian and allied nations hooked into the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil pipeline systems to get their oil to market should hostilities break out and shipping become unsafe and uninsurable over threats by Iran to sink and oil tanker attempting passage through the Straits of Hormuz as they have threatened numerous times. The disaster of a closed Straits of Hormuz and the disaster such would present for oil transportation from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the rest of the GCC nations, all one need do is read the map below, and for all first year ROTC Lieutenants who are map-challenged, the picture of which it can be said that a picture is worth fifty or so maps when describing such a situation as this. Also, by laying such a pipeline, Saudi Arabia would also have gotten around the Bab-el-Mandeb straights where Yemen, coming under Iranian control, though slower than six months ago as the Saudi efforts have begun to take hold, would choke off the southern end of the Red Sea and access to the Suez Canal. Iran has been busy taking control of maritime straits and Saudi Arabia is seeking a pipeline to bypass all the Iranian choke points but at the price of being accused of being a Zionist pawn. That may be the price the Saudi Royals may have to pay.

 

 

Map of Straits of Hormuz with Distance Legend
plus Picture for a More Visceral Representation

 

 

The potential for a crisis should Saudi Arabia-Iranian situation continue to escalate and Saudi Arabia continue their sabotage of the price of oil by refusing to permit OPEC to lower their production as they are using their massive oil production potential to keep the prices where they and their allies can operate and still make a profit, a smaller profit, but still a profit while Iran and their main powerful backer, Russia, both unable to make much if any profits from their oil production capability. Further, this false low price of oil has had a chilling effect on United States fracking production which is more expensive but the United States oil producers, already pumping output, can make a profit by having their output processed within the United States as they save considerably from low transportation costs which would have been further lowered had the Keystone Pipeline been built which would have also facilitated more fracking operations thus increasing jobs not only for building the pipeline but also in the oil fracking business which jobs would have had a longer permanence. The Saudi Arabian pipeline rumored to be in the works to have it go through Jordan and Israel to Mediterranean Ports would provide a new shipping point for shipments to Europe and would conceivably have an expansion of Israeli refining opening new and modern petroleum processing distilleries and other ancillary industries and employment. Such a pipeline, by removing the longer trek from the Persian Gulf around the Arabian Peninsula up the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal just to reach the Mediterranean Sea basically at an Israel port, would save Europeans as their price of oil would be significantly lower and the Saudi Arabians would also find greater profits while still making life difficult for the Russians and especially the Iranian oil industry.

 

Adding fuel to the fire, Saudi Arabia went forward with the execution of the Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr along with forty plus Sunnis. The execution of Shiite Imam Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr comes after his spending a decade waiting execution while protests have rung throughout the Shiite world right up to the execution. After the execution, the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Tehran and one of their Consulates were attacked and the Saudis ordered all diplomats from Iran out of Saudi Arabia within 48 hours. The rest of the GCC capitals also followed suit. The rioters in Iran protesting the Saudi Arabian actions in the execution of Shiite Imam Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr for good measure also were burning flags of the United States claiming they were supportive pawns of Saudi Arabia and also flags of Israel as Israel was really behind the United States and Saudi Arabia, plus were defeating the holy Islamic rule in Egypt and Turkey, meddling in Syria, threatening Lebanon, imposing a greater Israel from the Euphrates River to the Nile River, aggressing against the Rule of the Twelfth Imam and affecting the weather through global warming to sink Easter Island, the Galapagos, the oil fields in Alaska and the polluting of the Solar System with spacecraft blighting Allah’s creations. Well, yes, perhaps I got carried away, but at what point did you notice things had gone off the rails? Actually, there may come a day if Islam completes their desired path and rule all of the world and still, somehow, Israel is left completely alone standing on an Islamic world, still any ill or problem will still be placed at the feet of Israel and blaming Israel will have completed what the BDS loons started, making Israel the idol that all worship as the killer of dreams.

 

Any completely losing it in this article is due to the dread of having to listen to President Obama’s State of the Union address at least four times if I am to be able to critique it other than, EXCUSE ME!?! Um, sorry for yelling, it is really freaking me out and I will hate my DVR by night’s end.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

President Obama Gains Treaty Passage Augmented by Iranian Slanders

 

Speaking to Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) soldiers Wednesday, Brigadier General Mohsen Kazzemeini exclaimed “They (the US and the Zionists) should know that the Islamic Revolution will continue enhancing its preparedness until it overthrows Israel and liberates Palestine.” Brigadier General Kazzemeini continued by proclaiming, “We will continue defending not just our own country, but also all the oppressed people of the world, especially those countries that are standing on the forefront of confrontation with the Zionists.” He was quoted further declaring the intentions of Iran and IRGC troops would continue their military interventions in surrounding countries supporting friendly forces in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

 

Earlier Wednesday the Basij militiamen were on hand in Tehran to unveil a plaque with ‘100 insults’ towards America, with Iranians protesting outside the site of the former US embassy which included their intents against three main enemies of the moment by a display which also involved the public burning of Israeli, American and British flags outside the site. Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, the ultraconservative leader of the eighty-six clerics elected from a select group approved by the Supreme Leader and a committee of the most ardent supporters of the 1979 Islamist Revolution, Iranian media reported as declaring, the nuclear arrangement will not “change our foreign policy” nor will it affect or change the Iranian hatreds for the United States as their “our number one enemy, whose crimes are uncountable.” Ayatollah Yazdi was said to have claimed that, “The US and Israel are the source of the situation in the region and (their stated) goal is to protect the Zionist regime in the Middle East.” The Ayatollah was quoted further indicating the Iranian support for their forces fighting the conflicts caused by the United States and Israel in the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

 

 

Iranian Protesting outside the site of the former US embassy which included their intents against three main enemies of the moment by a display which also involved the public burning of Israeli, American and British flags.

 

 

 

Just last week as support for President Obama’s and Secretary of State Kerry’s negotiated nuclear agreement (read “Treaty” which is not to be treated as a treaty and thus requiring the passage and likely a veto override to terminate its implementation) climbed towards denying the enactment of the legislation, Iranian Parliament Speaker’s Adviser for International Affairs Hossein Sheikholeslam was quoted as saying, “Our positions against the usurper Zionist regime have not changed at all; Israel should be annihilated and this is our ultimate slogan.” Sheikholeslam rebuffed Hammond’s earlier declaration, “What we’re looking for is behavior from Iran, not only towards Israel but towards other players in the region, that slowly rebuilds their sense that Iran is not a threat to them.” Sheikholeslam further rebuffed Hammond for calling for past hostilities between Iran and Britain to be allowed to fade into the past declaring that Iran “will never forget the past and Britain’s colonialist moves.”

 

These and likely so much more that we are not learning about, due to media denial being almost as stupefying and stuck in rejection as the Administration, has been acting to deny even the most glaring misconceptions they have claimed about Iran. Where I do not deny that Presidential Chief Adviser Valerie Jarrett has deep family roots within Iran as she was born Persian (Iranian) though she was educated in the United States, there is little other than that and the selected excerpts attributed to her and used to fashion her as an Islamist ideologue. There also exist rumors pertaining to Mohammad Javad Zarif Khonsari, (Persian: محمدجواد ظریف خوانساری), the Iranian Foreign Minister and Lead Negotiator for Iran Nuclear Agreement, and Secretary of State John Kerry, the chief American and Senior Member and Spokesperson of the P5+1 delegation, were presumably invited and in attendance at a dinner party hosted by George Soros at his Manhattan penthouse over a decade ago. Who knows if they were seated next to each other or across the table or did they converse at any length during the entire evening or were they simple among the guests and had no ascertainable or significant interactions. Valerie Jarrett was intimated to have worked with George Soros or as one of the presiding members of George Soros’s Open Society or other interest. Read into these presumably damning connections or simply believe they were doing their parts in carrying out the orders from the Administration, in which they serve which may have come from wherever and whoever is in charge. Who knows the true interplay between Mohammad Zarif, John Kerry, Valerie Jarrett, George Soros and President Obama or even Michelle Obama and whoever else people have placed into the conspiracy soup and brought to a low roiling boil. The only thing that matters in the end are the terms of the <a=http://wp.me/PIou8-1RL target=blank>Iran Nuclear Agreement of July 14, 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and any addendums and side deals accepted by the separate Parties or the IAEA.

 

 

Mohammad Javad Zarif nuclear treaty Khonsari : (Persian محمدجواد ظریف خوانساری) the Iranian Foreign Minister and Lead Negotiator for Iran Nuclear Agreement, and Secretary of State John Kerry casually talking aside from the rigors of debating positions on the Iran

 

 

There was an early declaration in which then Candidate and Senator Obama stated in speeches that his Administration would use diplomacy and spurn the use of military if at all possible. He also stated that he intended to have an outstretched and open hand reaching out to Iran in order to pull the Iranian governance into the family of nations. This was to end all the bad blood and isolation imposed through embargoes and trade isolation. Candidate Obama made sure that his primary foreign interest had nothing to do with Western nations, Israeli interests or their ability for defending themselves. He disregarded any of the previous situations the Bush Administration had bequeathed him starting with ending production of the F-22 Raptor stealth fifth generation fighter, the ultimate plane in that class, opting for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Next President Obama reneged on the deal to place radar in the Czech Republic and anti-missile defense launcher in Poland offering in its place one Arleigh Burke Class Aegis Destroyer to perform the same defense as the land based system. The President promised to defend Islam from slanders and deridement while forcing an advancement of negotiations between Arab Palestinians and Israel by pressuring total capitulation and potentially complete surrender of all of Jerusalem and the connecting road and rail lines to Tel Aviv to the west.

 

 

Arleigh Burke Class Aegis Destroyer on maneuvers

 

 

There was one last target President Obama had placed constant and total commitment to bring Iran into the family of nations even if accomplished by bludgeoning the rest of the family of nations not only into accepting Iran but also to accept a fully nuclear armed Iran which has its tentacles reaching across the bottom of the Saudi Peninsula, to the Mediterranean Sea in Syria and Lebanon and also potentially holding all trade routes hostage because of where they can place mines and covered through use of artillery at the choke points in the Striates of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb. Iran, like Islamic State, has desires and designs to spread Islam, their own interpretation of Islam; Shia for Iran and Sunni for Islamic State. So none of this should come as the surprises the media is making them out to be. President Obama had a defined and distinct set of objectives and he has reached the near completion of his terms and intended goals and has certainly accomplished not only bringing Iran into the family of nations but also made for a great initiative to allow them to purchase all their little darkened hearts’ desire and still have more than sufficient funds to buy a few additional breeder reactors, centrifuges for a new clandestine enrichment and weapons plant rumored to be likely underneath south-central Tehran below a number of buildings including a medical campus with hospitals and clinics and a shopping mall, all of which which will have its entrance in a subbasement which will provide the necessary clandestine entrance.

 

President Obama has staked his domestic policy on remolding the United States into another European Union except that in President Obama’s system the entirety of policy comes from the President on all things unless he should face overwhelming opposition, namely the Congress being capable of preventing a veto clearing with two-thirds vote thus able to override any veto. There have been any numbers of people who claim that President Obama has destroyed by his complete disregard for the United States of America’s Constitution. That claim is not without merit but the Imperial Presidency is far from anything new as another President have ignored or actually nullified the Constitution by suspending habeas corpus in order to arrest people opposing President Lincoln. He had arrested the entire Maryland Legislature in order to prevent them from joining the Confederated States of America, aka the South or revolutionaries. In the case appearing before the Supreme Court known as Worcester vs. Georgia, where after the Supreme Court overturned the findings of the lower courts’ rulings, President Andrew Jackson reportedly responded: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” Still, President Obama has appeared to have some of the most severe obstructions which bind the administration’s actions for as long as possible behind denials and cover-ups.

 

 

Constitution Preamble against Obama in a Death Tearing Match and against a piece of Parchment some thought erroneously the President would have met his match

 

 

We will soon realize the fruits of the Iran nuclear decisions and feel some of the ramifications. If you thought Obama Care was a disaster, just imagine what Iran will be capable of with an anxious Europe to close business deals, and the Chinese and Russians attempting to get some form of financial relief for their economic doldrums, visualizing arms orders for them to fill for Iran that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Oddly enough the United States will not be receiving any orders from Iran for goods or services; they would rather enrich the Europeans who do not pose a military challenge to Iran. The Iranians are more likely to order items from Israel than they are the United States. There should be people on watch for any suspicious acts which may be the preliminary reconnaissance at very public places, especially baseball and football games as stadiums make a perfect target for nerve agents, especially if it is a heavier than air molecule which some of the most lethal have the lingering along the ground and in a stadium it would just linger around the lower deck and all the lower exit ramps just sitting their deadly, silent, colorless, odorless and fatal after two breaths which means after you have run fifteen to twenty feet you fall dead. This could be done by a group of terrorists who posed or actually run one of the vendor areas in the stadium such that they could bring in tanks of compressed agent colored to appear like regular CO2 and taking the select few to the top deck and sit them so the stream will tumble down the walkway and through the railings and start building up at field level. Yes, they would need to run their stand for six months or so before they could bring in a couple of extra tanks each week until they had sufficient for their attack. And do not get on us for giving them any ideas as if we can imagine such, they probably already ruled that one out as the risks outweigh the probabilities of success. Still, they will have the money to watch every movie and see the blimp attack that was foiled as the blimp reached the stadium, wasn’t the greatest story ever told, that’s for sure. But President Obama and his several mouthpieces, including the two biggest misadventures ever to grace a podium, Joe Biden and John F (for nothing) Kerry, will be out touting the great advantages and how they played Iran and really got them with their fabulous deal and restriction that when applied the Iranians will never see it coming and boy will they be caught with their pants down. Then they will try to make one of their surprises they claim were in the del and run right into Iranians holding guns and blocking the inspectors and everybody else at the airport and, if they are lucky, placing them right back on the plane before it leaves and if unlucky they will be given accommodations which do not quite live up to Holiday Inn Express accommodations. It will be fun as long as you miss all the fun.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The World After President Obama

 

There are those amongst my friends and acquaintances who fear that President Obama will declare Martial Law after instigating some false national emergency whose borderline irrational fear mirrors that of those who feared the same from President George W. Bush. There is too much precedent for such to occur and President Obama will step down and give way to the duly elected President in mid-January of 2017 after the 2016 November elections. The question remains what shape will the world present to the next President and what shape will they find the United States presenting them, allowing for actions to steer the United States after their inauguration. The one point that needs to be made is this assessment is made with absolutely no regards from which party or who will be the next President as we can cross that bridge when we reach it. The first thing is the President will face his power on foreign policy will start from a position of actual weakness not felt by the United States since the start of World War II and actually in worse condition than at the end of President Carter or any other. They will be facing a situation where every branch of the military will have had bordering neglect of weapons systems and other vital maintenance with potentially the nuclear deterrent and missile systems in potentially the worst shape with some munitions in such disrepair as to require their destruction and the necessary systems for producing and upgrading these vital assets also teetering on exhausted supplies and neglected condition as to make their management a simple case of dereliction of duty caused by strangled funding and intentional degradation ordered from the highest places. They will find the senior officers to be largely made up of a weakened corps of merely ‘yes men’ and actual pacifists who believe the United States military would best serve the world in the capacity to deliver aid but not necessarily deliver force of arms beyond the shoreline with the exception of utilizing drones and other stand-off weapons partially due to depleted manpower caused by decreased funding and the paring down of the military leadership through neglect to make efforts to retain the officer’s corps.

 

The rebuilding of the military power will take a concerted effort and require massive funding increases which will make any promise of reduction of the tax burden near to impossible to deliver on in the first two years without simply patching some of the most serious areas of military weakness due to nearly eight years of intentional neglect and lack of concerns for the consequences. There will be the need for some of the cancelled military productions and for consideration of developing modern replacement for some of the oldest of the vital systems. The B-52 heavy bombing corps is utilizing airframes mostly built before 1990 and using systems designed originally in the early and mid-1950s and receiving upgrades restricted to that airframe and other limitations due to restrictions resulting from the designs being of antiquated designs and technologies which would require extensive restructuring of the basic airframe which would more likely be better served by replacement of the B-52 fleet with a new long-range bomber designed with forward looking technology. Even the B-1 and B-2 bombers are utilizing old technology and would require a complete overhaul of systems and even design. The Air Force may be better served with considering a completely new strategy where the pilots of fighter squadrons no longer were seated directly in the aircraft but instead flying the fighters from remoted position of a dedicated stealth aircraft where multiple fighters are controlled from relative safe stand-off positions. Such remotely controlled aircraft could retain much of the size of the current airframes which now being remotely controlled the airframes could be designed with intent of making high-G maneuvers previously impossible to execute due to having a pilot onboard the aircraft. Such a fleet utilizing such design parameters would revolutionize air combat for the future in ways thought unimaginable just ten years ago. The same considerations could be utilized in many modern systems when their next redesign is due especially armored combat vehicles using similar control systems allowing for the replacement of crews with automated systems which would permit decreased size and vulnerability of profile while retaining the accuracy and armaments of modern warfare armored systems. Replacing the infantryman with a robotic system is not yet feasible but should be a priority task presented to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) with an expected rollout of several prototypes each providing the same abilities with additional features possible only in a robotic system. These systems would still require human operators who would make final decisions of when to shoot and when to stand down. It is doubtful that the American population is ready for terminator styled soldiers operating independently reliant solely on advanced AI (artificial intelligence) units quite yet, but even that would be a presentable concept when considering the demands that any military action place risk on the troops minimizing any possibility of human casualties.

 

The stress on military upgrading and rebuilding is simply due to the requirement of a force to back up policy is required if one intends to have a positive position in dealings with other nations or a defensive position which by requirement is overtly careful so as not to provoke anger or rejection knowing that the military is unable to back up and enforce policies and other demands including protection of the homeland and its interests overseas. This is crucial because the next President will be facing difficulties of the United States’ own making across the globe. Europe will be facing economic challenges which will render their policies being ever more defensive and cautious with numerous European nations facing unrest within their borders. The potential for an explosion of bloodshed within the European continent is becoming not only a future threat but approaching transforming into an imminent threat uncontrolled illegal immigration will be approaching the tipping point where the European culture will become challenged which will push the European indigenous population to the point where the decision will be the same as it has been throughout human history when two disparate and opposing cultures reach the point where the minority population decides to attempt, through intimidation and other threats, to impose their norms on the ever shrinking and aging majority replacing their culture and supplanting them as those wielding power going into the future. Should Europe when so challenged react in the fashion which has served them in the past, with such response as often typified be referencing the Inquisitions, the result will be just as or even more horrific. Europe as a whole has a very disturbing history of open warfare between competing positions which were demanding for far lesser changes in the culture causing horrific wars even including civil conflicts within one’s borders. The possibility of similar response today is all too real. One need not look that far afield to bear witness to such results where internal forces rise up and before all is decided, outside forces enter the war hijacking it to forcefully take over the nation wracked already in violence in an attempt to install a new set of leadership just as dictatorial, just as oppressive, just as cruel and potentially even more barbarous than the one being overturned. Such disasters even threaten to redraw the maps casting the formation for the sham and relativity designed solely to enrich foreign investments. Such is what is being fought over and is the main reasoning given by ISIS who is intent on supplanting both the former dictator and those who sought to replace their dictator with a modern system most likely with elected representation resulting in what is oft referred to as a democracy. Should ISIS prove victorious, there will be a new leadership in the form of a Caliph, an old title being restored so as to impose an old dictatorial leadership who takes their claim to the throne based on historic familial relationship to former Caliphs all the way to Muhammad thus adding a religious basis for their power. Such a religious tyranny would be very similar though diametrically opposed to the theocratic dictatorship of Iran, the other eight-hundred-pound gorilla in this struggle. The third leg of this societal struggle would be represented by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi who has yet to be fully defined and is the sole representative desiring to inspire his nation to become the towering example of how an Arab and Muslim state is capable of using elections as the tool for actually choosing the national governance but also guaranteed to be free and open elections even should he be defeated, and then comes the real test as to whether or not the newly elected leader after President Sisi also chooses to continue the liberal march into modernity or chooses to install themselves as the unchallengeable leader of Egypt. Meanwhile, there are three distinct powers currently vying to lead by two of these and the third simply has desires of surviving the current assaults on its existence which has been an active fight since its inception in May of 1948 and has been pressed to remain on the cusp between militaristic power and start-up nation with a thriving economy wishing only to be unleashed by the restraints necessitated by a constant threat of war.

 

The largest challenge looming on the horizon and very possibly to explode before the end of President Obama’s remaining time in office is of his own doing. The potential for the start of a struggle that would forever change the world may have started once President Obama completes his own set goal of bringing Iran back into the world of nations. The manner in which President Obama set out to perform this miracle would have entailed defanging Iran and then inviting them to join the nations of the world with peaceful intentions by Iran. Instead we have a United States President blindly charging forth demanding this will be his legacy, the making of Iran a coequal partner of the Middle East. The one unavoidable fact is that just as Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) will be his domestic policy legacy; just as, if not more, dreadful will be his foreign policy legacy as Iran becomes a nuclear power which will have established a basic arsenal of deliverable nuclear warheads consisting of minimally a dozen and more likely three to four dozen with at least one third being thermonuclear warheads (hydrogen fusion warheads). This will place Iran well ahead of whatever plans Saudi Arabia may have in place. This announcement may come at any moment all dependent upon the extent and advancement of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The truth is the world has absolutely no clue as to whether or not Iran already possesses a number of nuclear warheads hidden away from the prying eyes wandering across the skies both orbital and others ground based aircraft. The one truth we do know is that once it becomes obvious that Iran has become a nuclear power, then it will not take numerous other Middle East nations to develop and start building their nuclear weapons arsenals. This new weapons conflict may be solely restrained by the availability of Uranium in any form to be enriched to weapons level of over ninety-percent and then its merging with the rest of the warhead. Below is the list of known nuclear weapons states and an estimate on their numbers of warheads. Once Iran has announced or been determined beyond a reasonable doubt to be armed with nuclear weapons, then the list below will become somewhat obsolete as it is rumored that Saudi Arabia has a standing agreement with Pakistan to purchase approximately one dozen nuclear warheads just so Saudi Arabia will be covered while they acquire and build their own weapons thereafter. One can also expect that Egypt and Turkey would follow suit and develop their own nuclear weapons systems. The breakdown of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also referred to as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), will tempt certain other members to choose to opt out and develop their own nuclear weapons. Some nations may decide to develop and build their own nuclear weapons while retaining their place on the NPT committees. Some of the other nations which might decide the time has come to join the nuclear club include Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Taiwan and Japan to name a few that came to mind. The nuclear club is perched to become a far larger club of nations where its membership will no longer be the reserved of the very elite but start to resemble another useless body, the United Nations General Assembly which has become a place where the barbarians sit in judgement making decisions that carry no weight behind them beyond the media attention they generate.

1) Russia 7,500
2) United States 7,100
3) France 300
4) China 250
5) United Kingdom 225
6) Pakistan120 (estimated)
7) India 110 (estimated)
8) Israel 80 (estimated)
9) North Korea < 10 (estimated)
10) Iran ??

 

The final stage is China and her continuous efforts to claim the South China Sea and all the islands found within that general area. The problem is there are other nations who claim these islands and who hold claims just as valid. There is a chance of a conflict here though one has to imagine that China is the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of Asia as her size and modernized army with weapons to match and including nuclear weapons. This is the main reason that Japan, Taiwan and even the Philippines might all be slowly reaching the conclusion that if they are to prevent China taking over the islands one after the other inexorably slinking towards their main Isles thus posing an ever growing threat to these Island nations, they are considering that which would have a decade ago been unthinkable, joining the nuclear armed nations so as to have equal threat potential against China. More as an aside than a warning, one must also remember that the most recent Russian madman, Putin, has delusions of reestablishing Greater Russia and now that China and Russia are back on speaking terms, they have been talking of an alliance for sharing technological advances, nuclear technology, weapons research and development. This has an ominous side in that most terrorist groups have either Russia or China at the head of their supply chain. All taken in, we find the nation of the United States with a military that many have pointed to as merely having the strength the United States could project at the very start of World War II, Russia and China ascending, Iran, supported by Russia and China, being handed nuclear weapons and a very large industrial scale systems to construct said weapons from where they will begin to exercise power over the Middle East and perhaps beyond to Central and South America through Venezuela and Cuba being aided by Russia who appears poised to reacquire the lands of Eastern Europe and Central Eurasia, reestablishing the concept of a Greater Russia. Additionally there is China with an ever more capable navy claiming and taking one island after another while claiming all of the South China Sea and threatening to replace America as the preeminent power in the Pacific including the coastal areas in South America and made all the worse as the United States had gifted China with owning the ports at both ends of the Panama Canal even before the turn of the calendar to the twenty-first century.Then Iran has as luck would have it control over the Straits of Hormuz through which almost all of the Middle Eastern oil is transported to the world and is taking control the straits of Bab el Mandeb through their proxy in Yemen, the Houthis, which grants them control over the Suez Canal as this is where the Red Sea enters the Gulf of Aden leading to the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the world thus granting Iran control over one third of the world’s trade and oil while China controls the busiest sea in the South China Sea as well as the second busiest canal in the Panama Canal. How much more change can the world hope to endure?

 

Beyond the Cusp