The most annoying people are the ones who bleat, “But why should I care about what’s happening in Ukraine? We have so many problems in this country, maybe we should just concentrate on solving them.”
The problem with this approach is that even if you stop paying attention to the world around you, it doesn’t stop paying attention to you. Only very small children believe that if they close their eyes, nobody can see them. Adults usually know better.
Yes, why should you care that the largest country on the planet is turning Fascist? The same country that has one of the world’s biggest nuclear arsenals and that builds its identity around hysterical and massive anti-US and anti-EU propaganda.
Of course, I could start explaining why it makes sense to care about Fascism, but I’m thinking that if the tragic history of the XXth century was not enough to get that point across, I might not manage to be any more convincing.
Clarissa's Blog 
\\ The same country that has one of the world’s biggest nuclear arsenals and that builds its identity around hysterical and massive anti-US and anti-EU propaganda.
I think that if US doesn’t attack Russia and behaves like those annoying people wish, it wouldn’t have to fear Russia’s nuclear arsenals. Because your post implies otherwise.
The annoying ones simply don’t understand how badly Fascism abroad will affect USA’s economic situation at home. After feeling the effect, they would cry out for interference.
Reminds me of potentially nuclear Iran vs. Israel. If USA should care about Russia, Israel is right to care about already (equivalent to fascist) Iran and do everything to stop it from achieving the bomb. Iran uses anti-Zionist rhetoric even more than Russia – anti-American. In 2007, for instance:
The International Koran exhibition hosted in Tehran during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan featured a unique activity for its visitors: US and Israel flags were placed on the floor of the exhibition’s entryway, thus forcing those who visit it to walk over them on their way in – symbolically trampling Iran’s enemies.
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The US will not attack Russia. Nobody wants and suggests that. I also do not believe Russia will use nuclear weapons actually to bomb anybody. It will use the nuclear arsenal solely to exercise pressure and threaten, just like it did during 1950s-1980s.
“Reminds me of potentially nuclear Iran vs. Israel. If USA should care about Russia, Israel is right to care about already (equivalent to fascist) Iran and do everything to stop it from achieving the bomb. Iran uses anti-Zionist rhetoric even more than Russia – anti-American.”
– I really, really hope that nobody flips out and starts bombing anybody else.
“The International Koran exhibition hosted in Tehran during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan featured a unique activity for its visitors: US and Israel flags were placed on the floor of the exhibition’s entryway, thus forcing those who visit it to walk over them on their way in – symbolically trampling Iran’s enemies.”
– As long as they keep this in the symbolic realm, that’s their choice. If all Russians were doing would be limited to stomping on Ukrainian flags all day long, I’d be happy. The problem is that they have adopted the rhetoric of loving and helping Ukrainians. That’s the really bad part because it gives everybody else the excuse to pretend that nothing is happening.
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“Reminds me of potentially nuclear Iran vs. Israel.”
What doesn’t?
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I don’t see Iran as a nuclear threat to the world right now. And I’m not usually wrong in my political analysis.
However. There is a great danger that Russia will push Iran in the direction of aggression and heavy militarization. This would be straight from Comrade Stalin’s bag of tricks. Use Iran to start hostilities, then pretend you need to save the world and interfere.
This is why I believe that US’s best course of actions right now would be to lift all embargoes and restrictions from Iran and work hard to improve Iran’s economy and standard of living. It wasn’t done in Ukraine when there was still time. Now there is still time to do it in Iran.
This leaves North Korea, where Russia might employ the same strategy as I prognosticate for Iran. Here I don’t know what can be done, so I’m worried.
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I’ll put this in a separate post because I think this is an important point.
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🙂 Read my comment below and, may be, you will see better why many things remind me of Iran / Israeli security situation/ etc. It’s not desire to make Iranian citizens suffer.
While writing the comment below, I haven’t seen Clarissa’s new post. Now have a question:
// US’s best course of actions right now would be to lift all embargoes and restrictions from Iran and work hard to improve Iran’s economy and standard of living
What should Iran give in return, if anything? Would you demand stopping nuclear program? In a totalitarian society, rhetoric may leave and return, at a short notice. See: Russia.
However, there is a gleam of hope. This Israeli expert attached huge importance to a possible US-Iranian photograph, and said USA made a mistake not to demand it *before* making any concessions. He said such photograph would signal the end of 35 years of enmity with USA. In addition, he views young and (in the future) unemployed Iranian students as threatening Iranian regime from the inside, and reminded that Iranians had two (!) revolutions in the previous century. Things may change fast, when the proverbial straw breaks a camel’s back. But predicting when it happens, the expert sees as impossible.
If you are right and this course of USA actions would not hurt Israeli safety (and even benefit it), I would have been very happy. If it’s so simple, why don’t politicians (both Israeli and American) see it?
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“If it’s so simple, why don’t politicians (both Israeli and American) see it?”
– I’m guessing that they are not very smart and are congenitally incapable of seeing past the next electoral cycle.
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“What should Iran give in return, if anything? Would you demand stopping nuclear program?”
– That possibility is not there any longer. Four months ago, this discussion might have made sense. But after Ukraine, when a country asks, “If we stop developing nuclear weapons, who will guarantee our safety?”, what can possibly be the answer?
The US has publicly renounced its role as the guarantor of peace in these situations. Whether the US was good or bad at enacting this role in the past is not even important any longer. But in the last few months we have seen a very clear renunciation of this role on the part of the US.
What happened to Ukraine means that we should all forget any hope we might have entertained for limiting the nuclear arms race. This is yet another answer to the “Why should I care?” question. This is the globalized political arena we are living in. People who keep dreaming of US’s isolationism are either brain-dead or even more brain-dead.
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// – That possibility is not there any longer. […] after Ukraine
I am not sure. As you love to say, not everything is like everything else. In Ukraine’s case, USA showed it was no guarantor against Russia. In Iran’s case, US would have to only give a guaranty that neither itself nor Israel would attack Iran.
// In this game, the ones to win are those who are honestly prepared to risk the most. The US cannot risk even an ounce of the material well-being of the voters. […] the problem is that Russians have not managed to improve their standard of living significantly
It’s not only standard of living. Israel is a first world country, and the voters would be ready to support limited military action against Iran’s nuclear sites. Unlike voters in US, who may live in la-la-land, Israeli Jews hear “Iranian bomb = second Holocaust and destruction of our state.” Getting even many rockets for a while seems a small price to pay in comparison.
Honestly, had you been an Israeli citizen, would you prefer to live with Iranian bomb or to bomb the nuclear site, if there were no other options? Would love to get an honest answer with explanation.
“I don’t see Iran as a nuclear threat to the world right now.” — What about in a year or two? You see how fast things may change (f.e. the Russian Fencer)
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// The US will not attack Russia. Nobody wants and suggests that.
I worded it wrongly. Not only w/o physical attack, but also even w/o painful sanctions. Ignoring.
// – I really, really hope that nobody flips out and starts bombing anybody else.
I honestly don’t know whether bombing one specific place in Iran, if it will be the only way to prevent it from achieving the atom bomb, is better or not than not bombing. Of course, the best situation is to prevent w/o bombing via other means.
One of chain reactions to Iran achieving the bomb would be atomic arms race in the Middle East. You see how “stable” regimes here are. What if a regime gets the bomb, gets destroyed and nuclear weapons fall into hands of even less stable and more fanatical people?
Another result would be to make Israeli enemies, like Hizbollah, bolder, feeling protected by Iran’s nuclear umbrella. In a long term, number of Israeli victims will grow. How much I don’t know. Just now I read:
An Israeli man was killed and at least two others were wounded Monday evening, when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on Israeli cars near the West Bank city of Hebron. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the people were members of the same family, travelling to a Passover Seder.
[…]
Before Monday, the most recent West Bank shooting attack was in January, when a gunman opened fire on a military post in the Ramallah area. Troops returned fire, killing the gunman.
In 2004, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Seder meal at the Park Hotel in Netanya, killing 30 people and wounding dozens more.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4510148,00.html
Yesterday, I read an interview with a Jewish Israeli expert on Iran, who said that saying that nuclear Iran will be “an existential threat to Israel” is wrong. Why? Because it will signal to Israeli young people to leave Israel, if Iran gets the bomb. 😦 It honestly made me angry, despite understanding the importance of politics and its rhetoric, etc. I wish to know the truth, existential threat or no, not being manipulated to stay or leave. I suppose you also (like me) don’t think it really would be existential, right? However, before Holocaust, nobody believed it either. 😦
In any way, if Israel attacked this place in Iran, I don’t believe it would lead to WW3. Iran isn’t so insane as to attack USA, WW3-style. Israel would get rockets, but nobody would get nuclear rockets, since Iran wouldn’t have them. For WW3, you need several strong countries and both sides with nuclear potential. Iran would be alone and w/o the latter. Many other Middle-Eastern countries would be extremely happy to see Iran’s goals thwarted.
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“For WW3, you need several strong countries and both sides with nuclear potential. Iran would be alone and w/o the latter.”
– And this brings us back to Russia. In this game, the ones to win are those who are honestly prepared to risk the most. The US cannot risk even an ounce of the material well-being of the voters. Moreover, not even the slightest emotional discomfort will be tolerated. Voters in the US want to hear that everything is fine and “the best way to effectuate change in the world is by whipping up your credit cards and consuming some more.”
I’m hoping that there is some of that in Russia, too. But the problem is that Russians have not managed to improve their standard of living significantly in the past 20 years.
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The best hope for world peace is to have as many people as possible too content with their lives to want to risk what they have.
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// they are … incapable of seeing past the next electoral cycle.
In Israel? While talking non-stop about existential threats? I simply can’t believe everybody is so stupid. Must be a strategy somewhere. It’s not like Israel can or should publicly support Iran right now. Nobody knows what USA and Israel talk about secretly.
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I’m also trying to convince myself that nobody can be this short-sighted. I want to believe that Obama has some strategy here. But whatever it is, he needs to start deploying it NOW. Because what he’s been doing until now is not a strategy.
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