I suppose that from our perspective, much of what is happening in the world makes little sense. Why can’t people just learn to “live together” or "give peace a chance," as if we know anything about that in the current political climate here?
You have North Korea that is ruled by a paranoid boy who seems to think people want to take his toys away. Kim Jong-un, as mentioned before, enjoys a lavish lifestyle full of the perks of absolute power while the poverty rate in his country is 60 percent. If he wanted to keep his lifestyle, nobody outside North Korea would care overmuch what he does as long as he signs a peace treaty with South Korea, but Kim probably knows that when he has no external enemy to excuse the country’s poverty, the people will start looking for other explanations for why they are forced to live like animals.
Russia is another country that is only interested in “peace” on its own terms. It could have joined the rest of Europe and the West after the fall of the Soviet Union to promote "peace" and “world order,” but it chose to view itself as an “outsider” with its own separate interests and not be a “good neighbor." Russia could have joined the EU and made NATO an anachronism, perhaps to change its name and mission to reflect a changed defense posture, say against nations that do not share the West's "moral" interests.
Instead, Russia chose to provide rationalizations for the continued existence of NATO. Putin is less concerned about security issues than reconstituting the former Russian “empire,” and its actions in Ukraine only mean that it can’t be trusted to be a reliable "peace" partner.
Russia under Putin sees itself as more the “natural” ally of another authoritarian state with similar desires to run roughshod over other countries' interests, particularly in the South China Sea. China isn’t asking for anyone’s permission to build military bases on artificial islands or unilaterally claiming “rights” to potential mineral deposits. It isn't even giving a Taiwan a "choice" if it wants to be a part of something "bigger."
So why does China covet Taiwan so much? Why is it so intent on incorporating it? Because Taiwan has a “highly developed market economy”? Does it see Taiwan as a “threat” because it serves as an example for the mainlanders that “democracy” actually could work for them? If China actually does invade and annex Taiwan, how will the people who have grown up in a state of relative free speech and freedom react if these rights are curtailed? If mass protests occur, how will the Chinese government respond? Xi Jinping is obviously just as power mad as Putin, and Taiwan’s existence induces as much paranoia as Ukraine does for Putin.
But wait, who is that "white knight" riding in to save the day? Could it be French president Emmanuel Macron--facing a near collapse of his government from opposition to his proposal to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 which most people know is necessary for a government pension system already in deficit, but who don’t want to feel the pain “yet”--deciding to play the “statesman” again, this time hobnobbing with his pal Xi. Of course Macron has tried this before with Putin to convince him to call off the invasion of Ukraine—but here we see the “gulf” between reality and fantasy…
…with predictable “success” in stemming war. Macron apparently made a backroom “deal”—or at least in his mind he did—with Xi that China would not arm Russia in its aggression against Ukraine, and in “return” he promised to put out a typically arrogant French statement that Europe should not follow the U.S. lead in protecting Taiwan, without saying explicitly that he favored allowing China to invade Taiwan, but he might just look the other way; of course this sign of weakness was not seen in the light he had hoped it would be. Perhaps not surprisingly, many European leaders expressed exasperation at Macron’s jelly-spined naiveté in accepting Xi’s empty “promises” to reign-in Putin in exchange for aiding China’s naked power play at decoupling Europe from the U.S. on foreign and economic policy.
The French still have this goofy idea that they are “superior” to everyone else (forgetting they have “competition” for that “title” with the British and Germans), at least “culturally.” I visited Paris once when I was stationed in West Germany, and under the Eiffel Tower was some hamburger stand for the tourists; I ordered a “Whopper,” which of course looked exactly like the Burger King version. I was “corrected” in my pronunciation—“whop-pare.” Well, if the French are going to steal an American cultural “icon,” then maybe they should show it some respect by pronouncing it “correctly” themselves.
Meanwhile Iran is just as intractable as it was 44 years ago. It is another country whose existence requires "enemies" to maintain its “legitimacy.” Thus it was more proof of the absolute incompetence of Trump’s foreign policy (if it can even be called that), to provide this “legitimacy” by foolishly cancelling of the nuclear deal with Iran. Regardless of how it was being overseen or if Iran was “cheating,” it at least gave Iran an incentive to re-enter the world with “better”—if not “good” behavior.
Instead, Trump gave Israel the green light to restart it “shadow war” with Iran, and in the aftermath of mass protests following the killing of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian “grand council” of ayatollahs who never themselves supported the nuclear deal and saw their power slightly threatened by the protests, thought themselves perfectly "rational" to find scapegoats for it from outside the country, Israel and the U.S. in no particular order.
Like any ruling government faced with unrest due to a failing economy from international sanctions, no desire to share power with the people, and opposes any weakening of religious law that would allow people to speak or even dress “freely,” Iran’s leaders engage in wagging the dog conflicts. It has been mainly employing its proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq to launch attacks on Israel.
Although Israel has been accused of being too "eager" in its activities against Iran, to be “fair” Israel does have a legitimate interest in acting on its own in light of these attacks and the probability that Iran will eventually develop a nuclear weapon now that it, like everyone else, has abandoned “diplomacy” in the wake of Trump’s actions; as we have since learned, Trump is like a child who when he doesn’t win or doesn’t want to play by the rules, just breaks everything and walks away, leaving behind others who don’t want to play with him anymore because he’s such a creep.
Yet before the Iranian revolution, the country did at least have diplomatic relations with Israel from 1950 until 1979. Iran has since not been a positive player for peace in the Middle East, still not recognizing the legitimacy of Israel and bent on its destruction, supplying arms to its regional proxies, including providing the missiles used in a recent mass attack on Israel from Lebanon. It also could be said that this plays into Israel’s hands, since as much as the country desires peace, it gives it an excuse to continue to try to take out Iranian military targets and personnel, since Iran is now seen as its principle threat to its existence.
The U.S., of course, can blame itself for Iran being more of a threat to world peace than it needed to be. 9-11 came at a convenient time for George Bush, with his approval ratings dipping below 40 percent; although the attack was orchestrated by Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Bush saw it as an opportunity to restore “family honor” in Iraq. In fact, Saddam Hussein saw Al-Qaeda as much a threat to his regime as the Shiites were, and this meant it was the enemy of Iran, with whom Iraq had been fighting and off-and-on border war.
Thus Iran had its hands full dealing with an enemy other than Israel. Bush, as we would discover, invented false justifications to invade Iraq, and today a weakened Iraq is no threat to Iran and the latter’s foreign adventures can now focus on Israel and U.S. interests.
I suppose, however, that the U.S. doesn’t exactly have an unblemished record, despite its claims of acting with a “moral” purpose. It’s actions in the Central America over the centuries had nothing to do with “morality” but to insure that they were safe havens for U.S. businesses to set up shop and exploit the natives. As Marine General Smedley Butler stated almost a century ago,
I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it… I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916.
And of course this country spread around the gift of democracy and market capitalism in places where it just didn’t seem to work, like almost anywhere in the Middle East, by forcing it down people’s throats, by military force if necessary (almost always so). This country has spent almost its entire history without having a foreign invader attempt to impose its will on it by military force, so we can only “imagine” what people in places like Ukraine are going through—or in the past Vietnam, El Salvador (actually, still), and today Iraq, Libya (that place is still a mess since Gaddafi left the scene), Syria, Afghanistan or wherever we stick or noses without the people’s “consent.”
But at least we can say our intentions were “good,” which we confidently claim is not to be said of other bad actors on the planet.
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