Geopolitics is about to Kill Your Children

*****PLEASE NOTE, I WROTE THIS IN JUNE, 2011 AND NEVER GOT TO FINISH. HOW DO YOU LIKE IT TODAY? *****

     Don't be stupid. Don't be naive. Be aware. If you live in Canada, the US, the UK, Israel, and certainly any NATO country, I want you to read this, share this, and talk about this. I generally will not engage in making predictions, and don't consider this to be a prediction.

     That said, I present for your consideration what I believe will come to pass, sooner than you think. As always, you are free to come to your own conclusions, my goal is always to provoke thought. I appreciate comments for and against, you don't even need to leave your name.

     Looking at big pictures can be difficult when you live in a world of instant gratification. When we are training our societies to have the attention span of a gnat, people no longer want to put two and two together, they're fine with just the two.

     Let's just get where we're going. Iran.

     Sooner rather than later we're going to war with Iran. This is not an if. It's going to happen, and sooner than I'd earlier thought. Sometimes entirely predictable geopolitical events can change course or timing, in this case, it's the timing. If you have kids in, considering joining, or nearing service age in Canada, the US, the UK and whatever NATO countries are browbeat into it, expect an Iran war and expect it to make Iraq I & II and Afghanistan look like practice. Which they were.

     We aren't going to start a war with Iran. This would be far too problematic. Iran isn't going to start a war with us, they're not insane. Neither of those things matter. Ready or not, here we go.

     It's not like this should come as a big surprise to anyone, however, it will be a big surprise to a lot of people for some reason. I find it hard to understand how so many people can know who all the celebrities are and when the last time they had a bowel movement yet care to know almost nothing about the serious things that actually affect their lives, but that's another rant for another time.

     We've seen the groundwork being laid for many years. The premise of the war was laid many years ago, but these things take time. Iraq I was about the invasion of Kuwait. It remains suspect that Saddam Hussein would invade Kuwait without some indication from the US there wouldn't really be a problem, after all, he was a strong ally of the US who armed him up to be the 5th largest active military in the world at the time. He was useful, he was a foil to Iran. No one cared that he was gassing the Kurds, they were a thorn in the side of Turkey and we would rather have Turkey on our side so it was geopolitically correct. It became an issue at that point because Saddam had passed his best before date. Oddly, the elder Bush somehow had the good sense to realize it sets a bad precedent to invade a country and kill the leader. This is the biggest of all geopolitical no-nos. Somewhere along the line, America lost that sober second thought. Possibly because Bush I was under a lot of pressure to "get" Saddam, to "finish" the job. When he realized he would be crossing a line that could have serious consequences globally, he had the fortitude to say no.

     This left the US with a couple of problems, a bit of a sticky wicket as it were. Number one, it wasn't well thought out because no one had an alternate plan in case Bush I did what he did, refuse to participate in regime change. Now they were stuck with Saddam at the helm and there was a great likelihood he could start telling stories that might cause some problems at home. There also was the probability he would now align himself against American interests. Problem number two? Belligerent Iran, the problem child. No one with that much oil is allowed to be so anti-American, why, it's un-American of them!!

     Since a military option would not be likely under President Clinton, the machine knew it had to bide its time and wait for a more likely President to take power. So the PR army moves in, suddenly, we regularly hear the two central themes in setting the table for things to come. For Iraq, evil dictator Saddam Hussein was developing "Weapons of Mass Destruction". Iran got the big prize, the "Going Nuclear" award. At any moment, it seemed, Iran could have a nuclear capability that could threaten the entire free world. During Bill Clinton's time in office these themes were widely spread by pundits and various low level talking heads, which led to a great reinforcement in the public mind that the "Axis of Evil" was the greatest threat since the invention of air.

     8 Years of Clinton gave them far more time than they needed to create the new reality. Every day someone, somewhere was discussing the chosen themes. While widely convincing the western populace of the menace we were facing, military planners and the intelligence community worked on a big piece of the overall goal of control of oil. Regime change in Iraq, and control of Iraqi oil. Then the big fish, Iran.

     Enter Bush II (the stupider one), the table was already set, all they needed to do was invite George over for dinner. They did. He ate heartily.

     That they crossed the boundary and launched an undeclared war leading to the hanging of a foreign head of state will surely come back to haunt us at some point, and what will our defense to it be? Do as we say, not as we do? In the process of ridding the world of one "problematic" person, thousands of American and British service men and women died, and civilian and "other" casualties were many times more. The goal of regime change came early, but control of oil takes time, money, and dead bodies, lots and lots of expendable people. When you add the injured, the seriously injured, the mentally destroyed, the numbers are staggering. Along the way came 9/11 and the NATO (which almost always means the US-UK-Canada triumvirate "supported" by various others) response in Afghanistan. Again, the number of lives destroyed far outweighs any sane response to a terrible terrorist attack that killed roughly 3000 global citizens (a great number were foreign nationals), as terrible as it was, the resulting misery caused is more than overkill. The second world war ended in 6 years. The first world war was over in 5.

     We've since had it revealed (far too late) the "weapons of mass destruction" was just a dream scene like all those tv shows. Osama Bin Laden is dead and people are questioning what we're doing in Afghanistan, so we're slipping out the door like a decade of death doesn't much matter anymore, because, in the no-hearted world of geopolitics, it doesn't. A major goal has been achieved that has nothing to do with Bin Laden or Hussein. It has everything to do with Iran.

     If you don't follow the connection, allow me to enlighten you.
   

     Politics is confusing to a lot of people. When you begin to immerse yourself into the geopolitical, the number of people who can actually take in these complex interactions between and among countries of similar and opposite interests narrows even further. Most people, whether they know it or not, have at the very least, a rudimentary knowledge of geopolitics. Most know no country is an island, we must deal with other countries for trade, for security, for travel, for all sorts of interesting and uninteresting things. People understand we have countries that are friends and allies, and other countries we have some level of disagreement with. Beyond that, the relationships and things done behind the scenes are immensely complicated and fraught with twists and turns, and a whole lot of ugly things go on that you could live a lifetime and never dream of, yet these things happen as a matter of course on a daily basis.

     In geopolitics, you don't have to wait for elections. You're usually too busy with conflicts. Where they are, where they're going, how big they are, the chance of spreading, where the trouble spots are, what potential issues may not be resolved with words or threats or bribes, not to mention also trying to determine where the ambitions of countries and/or groups of countries will lead them. Whew. It's fascinating, frustrating, and sometimes frightening, but it's important to have people who take the time to watch and talk about these bigger issues.

     Most of the people of my generation were lucky enough to have lived most of our lives without war. Of course, the big change for us came with the TV war, Viet Nam. It wasn't much less horrific for those of us watching from outside the US. This was the first "proxy" war where the great powers actually got drawn in. It could have been far more dangerous than it was had it ever escalated to the point where US and Soviet troops had actually had to engage one another. Russia had their own comeuppance in Afghanistan when the US armed Osama Bin Laden & company who routed the Russian Bear. Payback, geopolitics-style. The good ending for America was short lived, but that's the chance you take in the shady world of world domination.

     A few recent events have led to my wanting to write this piece now. Since a lot of geopolitics has to depend on educated guesses, sometimes you can feel relatively certain events are leading in a clear path and something upsets the apple cart. Lately, a lot of things are upsetting the cart, so it may be timely to have you thinking about this.

     War. Again. Iran.

     If I were amongst those in a position of great military power it's not a huge stretch to imagine the favorable conditions for the conflict are coming into place, albeit slightly quicker than thought, for regime change (the spurious term used to cover up the goal of controlling oil nations) in Iran. Years ago I wondered why we lingered, militarily, in Iraq and Afghanistan, then, suddenly, troop drawdowns & withdrawal were all the rage. I know I should have made this link years ago but I have a lot of things to think about.

     We have now created a generation of battle hardened desert fighters.

     This post became even more relevant today, September 8th, 2012, due to the actions of my country, Canada. comments welcome.