2rafa
18hr ago
I don’t think in the end that there will be war with China. The Chinese are more rational than the Iranians or Cubans, and the Taiwanese are not as hostile to unification as many imagine. “The plan” for Taiwan (gradual rapprochement under the KMT or successors) is still viable. The US did not nuke the Soviet Bloc in the Cold War. Iran and Cuba are actually more internationalist than China, much moreso, they both even had Leninist ideas about exporting global revolution.
"How do we fight China" is the question on the mind of American planners, and the answer is "we don't, not really".
We don’t. You semi-dispute that answer but I think you discount it as a full possibility. At the least it is far from certain. Ideologically the zeal is not there. China is a rival in grand terms but not in local ones. China lacks even America’s ideological mission. If the Taiwanese accept peaceful reunification in a moment of crisis for America, what happens? A broken, fractured American government sends an expeditionary force to Taiwan? That is ridiculous.
The Middle East is the grand arena for Anglo civilization, as it has been for centuries, arguably for a millennium; the English were after all among the most zealous crusaders. Taiwan doesn’t have an influential diaspora preaching war (Jensen Huang would rather a peaceful, quick reunification so that he can resume frontier GPU sales to China), it doesn’t have a hundred million Americans who believe its fate portends the eschaton.
The heart of American warmongering simply isn’t in conflict with China. Nobody really cares about the Chinese. The racial insults are about as bland and unprovocative as “cracker”. They are not some terrifying martial enemy. You can read Islamic propaganda about a global caliphate. A Chinafied America just looks like America with longer working hours and less visible homelessness. What is scary there? Social credit? We have it at home. Even being responsible for the pandemic didn’t move the needle, not really.
The only reason to fight China is out of boredom.
2rafa
23hr ago
It’s hard to picture exactly what a failed state in Iran looks like. Certainly it doesn’t look like Libya, Iraq or Syria.
Why? Firstly, the specific dynamics of Sunni sectarianism that drove conflict in Syria and Iraq don’t exist. Iraq is not ethnically homogenous but it is mostly Shia. Secondly, the longstanding, centuries old tribal dynamics of postwar / civil war Libya also don’t apply.
There are ‘factions’ in Iran. There are the Azeris. There are the Kurds (although more assimilated and pacified, even compared to their neighbors). There is a small Sunni minority. There are some Afghan refugees, although many have been returned recently. It has been a relatively contiguous polity for a very long time, unlike much of the Levant.
What does “failed state” Iran look like? Kurdish and Azeri militias fighting each other in the ruins of Tehran? Bourgeois university professors squaring off against remnants of the IRGC? It all seems pretty unlikely.
It’s certainly a very convenient defense going into midterms. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense though. From an Israeli perspective this is all 6-9 months too late. The IRGC is too deeply embedded to overthrow with a decapitation strike on the civilian/clerical leadership and the biggest protests in 30 years were quickly and mercilessly crushed a few months ago. Nuclear sites and stockpiles are dispersed and deep underground and it would take a nuclear strike or boots on the ground to have any chance of destroying them now.
The timing and other (eg WaPost) reporting suggests that MBS / the Saudis gave their go-ahead last week, which would be a major turnaround from the last two years of rapprochement with Iran on their part.
Possibly something to do with the negotiations; it was very interesting that even Oman and Qatar were hit by Iran.
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