| Red meat analysis from Spengler with his own special pepper rub, seared and sizzling straight off the grill. Yum! |
If a contrarian thought might be permitted, consider the possibility that all-out regional war is the optimal outcome for American interests. An Israeli strike on Iran that achieved even limited success - a two-year delay in Iran's nuclear weapons development - would arrest America's precipitous decline as a superpower.
Absent an Israeli strike, America faces:
A nuclear-armed Iran;
Iraq's continued drift towards alliance with Iran;
An overtly hostile regime in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood government will lean on jihadist elements to divert attention from the country's economic collapse;
An Egyptian war with Libya for oil and with Sudan for water;
A radical Sunni regime controlling most of Syria, facing off an Iran-allied Alawistan ensconced in the coastal mountains;
A de facto or de jure Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the Kingdom of Jordan;
A campaign of subversion against the Saudi monarchy by Iran through Shi'ites in Eastern Province and by the Muslim Brotherhood internally;
A weakened and perhaps imploding Turkey struggling with its Kurdish population and the emergence of Syrian Kurds as a wild card;
A Taliban-dominated Afghanistan; and
Radicalized Islamic regimes in Libya and Tunisia.
...There is no reason to expect most of the Muslim countries to go quietly into irreversible decline. All-out regional war is the likely outcome sooner or later. We might as well get on with it. |