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Originally Posted by Oberon
Gah, as much as I hate to admit it...you're right Skybird...a gung ho attitude won't do anything to help here...and it's really what the Iranians are hoping for...attention seeking. It's like some stupid little kid that keeps beating people up for attention, or acting up and doing stupid stunts just to get attention.
It's just so frustrating having our hands tied like this.  |
No one forces us to tie our hands, or keep them tied. It's just that we allow our establishements and leaders not to go into that effort of untying them. First thing you learn in almost every kind of martial arts: the importance of having a solid stand. We do not have that solid stand in the Gulf region, we allowed our leaders to push us into a position of extreme vulnerability, and that way our options are limited. we are also vulnerable towards not only the gulf states but the whole Muslim world and OPEC, since we do not attempt since decades to reduce our dependancy on them - for the benfit of our own oil lobby. we lost fourty years almost in trying to reduce our dependency from their oil, we wasted the time headlessly for just some more time to live out our excesses. Stupid. Reminds me of the deal with the devil: one life of 50 years in fame and glory, and afterwards an eternity of doom.
We need to become independant from Muslim oil, and since there is no more enough oil for all global players to please their needs and choose the origin of there oil, we need to become independant from oil altogether.
Next we must avoid to expose ourselves to such degrees of vulnerability like the Iraq war has done, and like our appeasement of Islam has done.
If we avoid these two mistakes, and reduce their effect in the future, we eventually could gain growing degrees of freedom of action. It's simple chess, guys. Just tactical play alone and setting the board on fire will help you only against an opponent that is of relatively weak abilities, and emans you are weak in ability yourself. Chess between better players is won by developing and enforcing a longterm strategy. You do not aim at just winning this pawn or that knight. You plan for figure constellations and positional advantages twenty, thirty moves away. It less spectacular, and needs more patience, yes. But there can only be one victor, and you prefer to be that one, so...
The West simply is too short-minded, and too much attracted by the sensation of the immediate present. Both China and Islam have longterm visions. That's why they "out-breathe" us.