The world is burning down. Ack! Head for the hills! The End is Near! Dogs and cats are marrying!
So, basically, it’s Tuesday on the Internet.
Let’s take a bit of a deeper dive, shall we? Or we can just do the headless chicken dance. Deeper dive? Good call.
I left Ukraine, Israel and Guyana out of my list on purpose. Today, let’s look at the bad guys. I’m grossly oversimplifying because this isn’t a Perils of Pauline serial and even the bad guys can have legitimate grievances. But having a real beef doesn’t give your nation state the right to muck up the planet for everyone else.
Iran and Yemen share interests that are fairly obvious since they are both Middle Eastern nations and both are sworn to seek the destruction of Israel. If the world were a simpler place, we could stop there, but politics does indeed create strange bedfellows. Iran and Yemen have direct interests in common with Russia. That aligns some of their interests with China. Finally, they share a goal with Venezuela.
Simple as a white 20,000 piece jigsaw, huh?
This is the part where most folks go off the rails. Because there are links between these nation states, folks leap ahead to the assumption that there is a grand conspiracy. They aren’t completely wrong. Nation states with aligned interests will work together and four of the five clearly have been in some level of cooperation. But that’s not a grand conspiracy nor is it the Illuminati pulling the strings. It’s just the normal muddling through of the political process with a particularly nasty wallow of mud.
Nasty in more ways than one. The problem with being the bad guy is you aren’t trustworthy and neither are the nation states that are willing to work with you. You now need to watch your back while hatching your plot – a villain’s work is never done.
How does this apply? Russia needs to bolster its currency but neither China nor India will buy oil from Russia in rubles. Russia is getting a lot of yuan that goes back to China for stuff Russia needs and more rupees that sit in an account because India doesn’t sell enough of the stuff Russia needs. Ignoring India, this arrangement benefits China at Russia’s expense. But Russia desperately needs to sell oil so it puts up with the situation.
Not. Driving up oil prices is Russia’s only recourse. So Russia has made the rounds in OPEC, several times. Russia is also creating new ties to Iran. Iran and Russia normally can’t stand each other, but Russia needs weapons, supplies and higher oil prices. They’ll kiss and make up – for now.
Iran has its own ambitions. Iran isn’t a major oil player – way too many sanctions for that – but it can affect oil prices by doing what it wants to do : destabilizing the Middle East. Did Iran encourage Hamas? The current view is no. My suspicion is that not directly is a better answer. Regardless, once the hornet’s nest was already kicked over, Iran moved to make the most of it.
The subsequent mess is more proof that Iran isn’t a puppet master, despite its best efforts to become one. Syria has enough on its plate, thank you very much, and had little intent to be more than a token force in this current ‘let’s all hate Israel’ parade. Then Israel blew up its airports and Syria decided to go play with its current set of internal disasters. Oh well, one pawn isn’t such a big loss, right?
Hezbollah is doing its best impression of being involved while sitting out the real fight. Or it was until Israel’s displeasure with all things hostile became way too real. Hezbollah can’t afford to be weakened which Israel will be happy to do if Hezbollah is dumb enough to really tick the Israelis off. Doing that is just what Lebanon is hoping for. Hezbollah is a massive problem for Lebanon and having the Israelis mess up Hezbollah enough for what’s left of the Lebanese military to finish off the leftovers is just what Lebanon wants for Christmas.
Hezbollah will be making lots of noise, without waking up the nice Israelis. There goes Iran’s rook.
Iraq? Risk yet another round with America? No thanks. Iran’s knight hopped off the board on its own.
Oh, but Yemen! It’s shooting at Israel and blocking the straight! Surely Iran’s queen is still on the board.
Eh, cornered bishop is more like it. Oh yeah, making a mess. Really irritating a lot of only vaguely connected to Israel maritime companies and their respective countries but so far it has not significantly affected shipping nor is it likely to. Billions of dollars worth of cargo pass Yemen every day and those ships aren’t going to be stopped by the Houthis. Israel will reroute some ships for now until it has time to ‘help’ the US make Yemen wish it had found a different hobby.
That assumes Yemen doesn’t actually damage a US warship in the meantime and have the US go all ‘proportional’ on them. The last time the US went proportional, Iran lost half its navy. Yes, really. That’s why Iran is getting Yemen to stick its neck out rather than Iran trying its own luck in the Straight of Hormuz.
Yemen’s antics look all scary on the news but do little to no real damage to Israel. They do a LOT of long term damage to Yemen. Evidently, Houthis aren’t the brightest bulbs in the box.
So much for the great puppet master. Give Iran credit, they are good at knocking the pieces off the board. Er, should we tell them that they are supposed to knock off the other players pieces instead? Nah, let ’em figure it out themselves.
Well, what about China? It’s got its Belt and Road fingers in all the best pies, right? Uh, yes but that isn’t going to work out so well this round. China plays this ‘being involved without really being involved’ game that mostly annoys allies whenever the chips are down. China acts like its everyone’s pal until China sees an opportunity to stab someone in the back. Unfortunately, the Middle East has a monopoly on backstabbing. China is busily looking to other matters because messing with a very PO’d hornet’s nest in a room full of hornet’s nests is not a winning strategy.
China’s usual ‘bull in a china shop’ diplomacy is likely to get it hurt very badly. There’s no one it can use without ticking off someone else that it can’t afford to tick off. Side with Israel and get cut off from Iranian and other Middle Eastern oil. Side with Hamas and hasten the manufacturing withdrawal it is already experiencing. No manufacturer wants to be on the side of terrorists, especially if they have to sell to America.
China will stir up the hornets with a very long pole from the safety of being outside the room – very, very far outside. Opportunistic, China is. Suicidal? Not so much. China will buy a few extra barrels of illicit Iranian oil and call it a day.
Surely then Russia must be the mastermind behind all this mess? Oh, Russia is stirring the pot, you can bet on that, but mastermind? Er, I don’t think that word means what you think it does.
Oh come on. Only Russia benefits from Venezuela attacking Guyana.
Well, that’s partially true. Venezuela could use the political distraction as its economy grinds to dust. But yes, Russia would benefit if there were the slightest chance of a real war. Venezuela can’t attack by ocean or through the jungle. That leaves cutting through Brazil. Now, Brazil is in a socialist phase but it’s not gonna take a challenge like that to its sovereignty, not even from another socialist disaster area.
Oh, did I mention Brazil actually has a functional military?
There will be noisy complaints and a few sunk Venezuelan vessels and that will be that. Exxon Mobil has interests in the Guyanese oil fields which means the US may send a destroyer to wave at the sinking Venezuelan ships – Brazil, remember? There will be a lot of fireworks and no real show.
Seriously, if Russia’s entire strategy is ‘make the US look the other way’ they have already lost.
Russia has certainly been whispering in a lot of ears. That’s borne some fruit. It has made a mess. Now, that doesn’t mean Russia is pulling the strings. Encouraging stupid people to do things they want to do anyway isn’t the same thing as making them dance to your tune. Ask Hamas and the Houthis when this is over just how much they feel like dancing.
Did Hamas attack Israel at Russia’s behest? Absolutely not. They didn’t even do so for Iran. But did they see an opening and think Iran and Russia would likely back them at least behind the scenes? You bet your sweet bippy they did.
One opportunist preying on another in a round robin of self destruction. None of the players notice that they are all losing.
That’s what a real ‘grand conspiracy’ actually looks like.
