The gathering storm
Suppose you were a leader from Iran trying to avoid the lash of sanctions for a program that you had no intention of ever stopping. As such you only have a few friends on whom you can call for help.
As it happens one of them is North Korea with whom Iran has had commercial tranactions related to missiles and probably nuclear weapons. What if you could talk the Norks into a demonstration to coincide with action being taken to punish Iran for continuing its nuke program.
Perhaps Iran could also call on its terrorist contacts to plant some bombs in trains in India that might stir a fight between India and Pakistan.
And if that is not enough Iran could then call on its proxy forces with Hezballah to stage a murder kidnapping in Israel that will provoke a response that Iran might use to stir up other Muslim states to join them in a war with Israel. Perhaps you could get your one low functioning ally, Syria, to go along with this plan if you say that you will step in to defend Syria if Israel finds a Damascus return address on the Hezballah action.
To make this all look like deniable grand strategy, Iran could have her low functioning President suggest that he was aware of a plan that would lead to Israel's destruction.
But for some reason, there is still agreement on taking Iran's violations to the UN's Security Counsel, and to top it off there is pretty much world wide condemnation of your Nork buddy's fourth of July fire works show and of the terrorist murders in India, where Pakistan was quick to condemn your actions.
On top of that the Palestinian/Hezballah victim card is playing a weak hand. While other Muslim countries would like to see the action in Lebanon stopped, they know that Hezballah was responsible and they would all do the same thing if someone did that to their country. In other words it is getting harder to count on Muslim bigotry to bail out your miscaclulations and your proxies are going to take a serious butt kicking before this is over with.
Of course you can still try to block the Straights of Hormuz, but if you do there is unlikely to be any restraint on the punishment that will befall Iran. So this so called "perfect storm" is going to be gone with the wind soon, and the relentless squeeze on Iran's nuclear ambitions will continue.
As it happens one of them is North Korea with whom Iran has had commercial tranactions related to missiles and probably nuclear weapons. What if you could talk the Norks into a demonstration to coincide with action being taken to punish Iran for continuing its nuke program.
Perhaps Iran could also call on its terrorist contacts to plant some bombs in trains in India that might stir a fight between India and Pakistan.
And if that is not enough Iran could then call on its proxy forces with Hezballah to stage a murder kidnapping in Israel that will provoke a response that Iran might use to stir up other Muslim states to join them in a war with Israel. Perhaps you could get your one low functioning ally, Syria, to go along with this plan if you say that you will step in to defend Syria if Israel finds a Damascus return address on the Hezballah action.
To make this all look like deniable grand strategy, Iran could have her low functioning President suggest that he was aware of a plan that would lead to Israel's destruction.
But for some reason, there is still agreement on taking Iran's violations to the UN's Security Counsel, and to top it off there is pretty much world wide condemnation of your Nork buddy's fourth of July fire works show and of the terrorist murders in India, where Pakistan was quick to condemn your actions.
On top of that the Palestinian/Hezballah victim card is playing a weak hand. While other Muslim countries would like to see the action in Lebanon stopped, they know that Hezballah was responsible and they would all do the same thing if someone did that to their country. In other words it is getting harder to count on Muslim bigotry to bail out your miscaclulations and your proxies are going to take a serious butt kicking before this is over with.
Of course you can still try to block the Straights of Hormuz, but if you do there is unlikely to be any restraint on the punishment that will befall Iran. So this so called "perfect storm" is going to be gone with the wind soon, and the relentless squeeze on Iran's nuclear ambitions will continue.
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