Nobody Is Saying It, But ...

The current Israeli attack on Irian is showing spectacular penetration by agents of Mossad. They have been able to precisely target important military figures for assassination, for example. They are firing drones from places inside Iran.

Nobody is saying it, but it should be obvious that these “Mossad agents” are not Israeli Jews.

They have to be Iranians—and they are not doing this out of love for Israel. Israel has made a deal with the Iranian opposition. Their intent and end game is not going to be simply to get Iran to stop building nuclear weapons. The deal will involve an attempt to overthrow the Iranian regime. And no doubt the Iranian opposition has, with the help of Mossad, prepared the necessary next steps.

This is always the great weakness of an authoritarian regime. That Ayatollah fella is going down.

The name of the Israeli operation, "Rising Lion" actually already said so. The lion is the symbol of the Iranian monarchy. 

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

Things that seem epochal seem to be happening all at once, as I type, as though we are witnessing the hand of Providence. I may be speaking too soon, but rumours are growing of an economic collapse and a change in power in China. And to a more “pro-Western” regime.

What seems especially uncanny, and implausible, are reports of a sudden demographic collapse, of empty villages in the countryside, and of strangely empty streets in major cities. How can millions of people just disappear suddenly?

Possibly much work and purchasing has gone online, as it has, after all, in North America. Possibly an economic collapse means people do not have money to go out and spend, or work to get to. Possibly the government is harassing those who venture out, fearing any concentration of people might become an anti-government demonstration or a riot.

But counter to this last hypothesis, reports are that the extensive Chinese network of security cameras has been cut off. Surely not what they want to do if they fear unrest. A power shortage?

Whatever the case, it seems that something big is happening in China. And any thing big happening in China is big for the whole world.

Meantime, there is the apocalypse in Iran. Israel is suddenly, in lightning strikes,  wiping out much of Iran’s military capabilities and creating chaos in the regime. Rumours are that many top leaders have flown out to Russia or Pakistan. 

If true, this is what happens when a regime is about to collapse. The Iranian regime has for many years not had any popular support. The military was vital to hold the people down through fear. Now the military is in disarray, and shown to be weak. Iranians  may seize the opportunity to rise up. Iranian friends in Canada are cheering on the Israeli attacks. There is an organized opposition abroad; as there was when the Shah fell. Then, they successfully flew in to take charge and restore order. It may happen again now. Losing a war or some reckless military adventure is a common trigger for autocratic governments to fall. 

That’s two of the three strongest anti-Western regimes.

And then there is the third leg of the triple alliance, Russia.

Russia and Putin have also just gotten a big shock, with the Ukrainian drone attacks deep into Russia. It was actually eerily similar to the Israeli attack on Iran, happening almost simultaneously, as though the same mastermind was behind both. If not God, perhaps the USA? 

It took out a significant part of Russia’s strategic abilities; and it brought the war to the common people back in Moscow. Not good for popular support, I imagine. 

Online commentators also say Russia, having now lost a million casualties, is finding it hard to replace lost manpower. They may be losing this war of attrition.

At first glance, this looks improbable. Surely Ukraine has a greater manpower problem, with a much smaller population. They’ve been fighting just as long. And a greater materiel problem: their economy is smaller, and their factories have been under attack far longer.

But the argument goes that, in order to gain ground, the Russians have been using human wave attacks, in a war which heavily favours the defense. The Ukrainians, by staying mostly on the defensive, have been able to take advantage of this. Perhaps the optics were bad, but it was the smart move. Let the other side run straight into the machine guns. 

As for materiel, Ukraine still has all of the EU, and beyond, to draw on.

Rumours online are that all this recent attack puts Putin on shaky ground; a palace coup seems possible. As with Iran, a failed military adventure is the most common trigger for the fall of an autocratic regime. 

Of course, this has all been said before, the imminent fall of Putin has been widely predicted, ever since the initial Russian invasion, supposed to take three days, was repulsed. He has shown great resilience. But even a cat has only nine lives. This recent mass drone attack, and the detonation under the Crimean bridge, does look like a possible tipping point. Like the Tet offensive was for the US in Vietnam—the frustration and sense of failure is that much greater once having started to feel victory was at last within view. It must be psychologically devastating.

With Israel’s attack on Iran, Putin has probably lost his main source of drones with which to respond to Ukraine. There are suddenly leaks that Russia and China no longer see one another as allies—consistent with the rumours that China is about to turn pro-Western. It makes sense; China has unresolved historical grievances and border disputes with Russia, and not with the USA or the West. 

So Putin too might soon and suddenly fall.

If any one of these three regimes goes, the other two are more vulnerable. We’re talking dominoes. And China, the biggest and most important of the three, seems to be a pretty sure thing.

What will the world look like if all three dominoes are down?

Hugely enhanced prestige for the US and the West. 

Surely lesser regimes like Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea, who have been anti-Western, will also fall or convert. Partly for lost financial backing; partly for lost prestige; partly from spreading revolutionary fervour. 

More importantly, the anti-Western elites within the West will be relatively discredited: the multicult groups running Canada, France, the UK, Germany, Australia, and the EU broadly. Already in process, their fall may be turbocharged. The superiority of the Western way will have been emphatically illustrated.

Hugely enhanced prestige for Donald Trump. FWIW. Cue AI to carve a niche on Mount Rushmore. Maybe with an assist from Musk’s Boring Company.

This may be bad for peace in the Middle East. Hostility towards and fear of Iran has tended to drive Gulf States into cooperation with Israel and the US; this incentive will now be gone. 

However, a number of terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, will have lost their funding. The current forever wars will cease. Certainly, this should end the conflict in Gaza. Without this hot conflict between Israel and fellow Arabs, the other Arab states may feel better able to sign on to the Abraham Accords.

I see a day peace will come to the Middle East. It once seemed impossible for peace to come to Ireland, too. Then it did. 

With Putin gone, Russian matters are unpredictable. But on balance, it would seem that, with the relative loss of strategic capabilities, a more bellicose leadership would have nowhere to go from here—just carrying on just the same. So if you see a problem, why reinforce failure? The obvious possible change is to try for peace. Even to end Russia’s dreams of standing apart from and against the West. That gives you a chance to declare a kind of victory. After all, culturally, Russia is Europe. Division is artificial. Pure self-interest suggests integration. It is only a childish national pride that makes Russia want to fight and seek empire.

One happy consequence of the end of the regimes in Iran and China could be a revival of Christianity. The CCP has discredited atheism in China; the Ayatollahs have discredited Islamism in Iran. Rumours are of a large number of Christian conversions as it is; although such conversions are more or less illegal in both states. With the lid off, this may grow; this may blow. And the vitality of Christianity in these influential nations, in turn, may also hasten revival in the older Christian lands; a revival that already seems to be starting. When the Iron Curtain fell, Pope John Paul II and Polish Christianity brought a new enthusiasm to Catholicism.

And Christianity is the backbone and foundation of Western culture. Is a Renaissance about to begin?

Trump's Game in Iran

 

The US is at pains to stress that Israel’s current strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is entirely Israel’s doing, and America is not involved.

I do not believe that for a moment. Methinks they doth protest too much.

Trump has been saying for years that Iran will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Last winter he said that if the Gaza hostages were not released promptly, all hell would break loose.

Trump is a skilled negotiator. He has set this up as “good cop, bad cop,” to force Iran to the table with minimum risk or destruction. I think he intentionally spread the rumour a couple of months ago that he and Netanyahu were having a spat, simply in order to give this plausibility. The media bought it.

Now Iran may be led to appeal to US for protection from Israel. And Trump can name his terms. He has given them an escape ramp. In the meantime, other actors throughout the Muslim world have less cause or claim to attack US interests, minimizing risks. And protecting the US’s Arab and Muslim allies. All the risks are on Israel, but Israel was already entirely at risk and has nothing exposed and nothing to lose.

And Trump preserves his domestic reputation as a man of peace, the basis for much of his popular support.

It is even possible Trump is playing a similar game with Ukraine—faking his hostility to Zelensky, which really did look like something staged for the cameras, a bit from his old reality show. Thereby letting the Europeans take the lead, while feeding Ukraine the intelligence needed for them to pull off spectacular strikes recently within Russia. With official US sanction, their hands were tied, over fears of sparking a nuclear exchange and world war. But Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet and strategic submarines were very much in the US interest. Trump may still be feeding technology to Ukraine through European intermediaries. 

Again, this would let him pose as an honest broker to Putin, someone Putin could turn to without losing face to make a peace. And it lets him, again, stay the pacifist for his domestic audience. The Europeans would surely be delighted to go along, because it makes them look independent and tough and consequential. Good for their ego.

Meantime, Trump’s tariffs on China seem to have caused some sort of tipping point, and the Chinese leadership is collapsing.

Imagine if Trump’s negotiating skills actually manage to achieve, in short order, the collapse of the Iranian, Chinese, and Russian governments, all without American blood being spilled.

It would earn him a spot on Mount Rushmore.

Next question: was Trump’s spat with Elon Musk also faked, to protect Musk’s business interests from attacks, while also giving congresspeople, especially Democratic congresspeople, cover to support the DOGE cuts without looking subservient to Trump?

This doesn’t require imagining Trump is playing 4-D chess. It’s more like the good old American game of poker. Plus acting talent.

Who Killed Raisi?

 

I have no inside information here, but I asked an Iranian friend who is deeply involved in the democratic resistance here in Canada for his view of the death of Iran’s president and foreign minister. He says they generally think it is an assassination, and an inside job. Part of a power struggle at the top. It may be because Raisi was too obvious a candidate to succeed Khamenei as Supreme Leader. Not pro-democracy forces, not the Israelis, and not the weather.

Will the death of Raisi bring good news for the Iranian people and the pro-democracy forces? Unlikely, he thinks. 

World War III

 

World War III seems to be trending. The recent missile attack by Iran on Israel has been billed by many commentators as its beginning.

It is not. As a matter of pure logistics, Iran can’t invade Israel, and Israel can’t invade Iran. Missiles are expensive, and Israel is pretty good at making Iran waste them—little payoff for the payload. Drones may be a continuing problem; but more for Israeli civilians than for the Israeli military. 

A World War tends to require grand alliances of nations. Instead, this may increase Iran’s isolation. Iran, the Shi’ite power, is the primary strategic threat to the Sunni Arab nations of the Persian Gulf and all points West, including the wealthy and militarily powerful Saudi Arabia. Iran has been meddling in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories. It has no natural allies. The big Arab states may take the opportunity to make common cause with Israel against their common enemy.

It may also increase opposition to the regime within Iran. A lot of the recent protest has been on the premise that the government has been spending money on foreign adventures while the people at home are starving. The current strike on Israel may be a show of power by a government that feels cornered; to cow their own people more than Israel.

https://x.com/elicalebon/status/1779685190941679979

I have Iranian friends. I have American friends who have visited Iran and spoken to people there. No Iranians seem to support the current regime. They are desperate for help from abroad to overthrow it, and wondering why it is not coming.

There may be an informal alliance of convenience among Iran, Russia, and China, but they are motivated by no common ideology and no common interests. In fact, their interests conflict.

The real danger is that each local war—Ukraine, now Gaza—gives incentive for the next, as the West’s resources get stretched. Now might be the time for Venezuela to invade Guyana and get away with it; now might be the time for China to invade Taiwan and get away with it.

Poilievre on Nowruz

 

Say what you will--Pierre Poilievre knows how to give a speech.

I bet this gets him the Iranian vote.

The Matriarchy Strikes

Delacroix, "Liberty Leading the People" 

Protests are happening now in many places. The golden thread that connects us with our governments has broken. The social contract has broken. Not just in one or two countries, but in many, most, maybe all. All hell is about to break loose.

In many places, these protests seem to be led by women. In Iran, the focus of the protests is the demand to wear the hijab, which only affects women; and it is the death of a young woman in police custody. In Dagestan, and elsewhere in the Russian federation, it is mostly women protesting in the streets. There is a practical reason for this: young men protesting will be hauled off to the front lines in Ukraine. Young men are keeping out of sight. In the US, suburban moms are showing up in droves at school board meetings, alarmed at what their children are being taught. If this group swings decisively away from the Democrats, they are doomed.

In Italy, a woman has just won election as prime minister. She leads a party supposedly further to the right than any previous postwar government; a protest movement. In Canada, a woman, Tamara Lich, organized and led the Freedom Convoy in February. A woman towards the right of that party is now running the UK Conservatives.

The women in particular are rebelling. What does it mean?

In the normal course of things, women prefer security to freedom. They want peace and order. This means they are the natural allies of government and continuity. When women rebel, it is especially significant. And the men naturally defer to them.

You might protest that feminism is a radical movement, hardly in favour of the established order, and we have been living with that for ages. But feminism was never radical, never against government and never against the established order. Feminists were never wild in the streets. Instead, feminism has always demanded bigger government and more social control. It was, moreover, always a movement of the upper and middle classes; bored suburban housewives. Those already in control. And it was, from the start, enthusiastically endorsed and supported by government and the establishment. Nobody ever fired at a feminist in the street. Nobody ever even prosecuted one—at least until Johnny Depp.

It therefore says a great deal when women are genuinely out in the streets, and protesting government and the established social order. Women are the glue that holds society together. They are the natural supports of government. If they are in opposition, society as a whole has turned. Women always get to decide.

I have said before that the crisis point in any revolution is when the military is called out to disperse the crowd, and they refuse. Then government has lost control.

But there is an earlier and almost as important crisis point: when that crowd is largely women.

The army, being male, is particularly unlikely to fire on women. They are likely to join with them instead. Women rule. If the soldiers do fire on women, all hell breaks loose. If men die, even a lot of men, nobody much cares. If women die, it is intolerable to most people, men and women. Now the population will be impossible to control.

So once the crowd is mostly women, the government is doomed.

The Russian Revolution in 1917 happened when the women rioted for bread. The Imperial troops would not fire on them; the Czar fell.

In the EDSA revolution in the Philippines, in 1986, the crucial moment came when the marines were sent in tanks to break up the crowd. A line of nuns knelt in their way. They halted. The army and air force began to defect en masse.

In Argentina in 1980, the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” pulled down the military junta. They could not be dispersed.

Examples could be multiplied.

When the women are in the streets, the regime is likely to fall. It has lost any regime’s essential support.

We are seeing that happen now.

Protests in Iran

 

As seen on Twitter.

More.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1572350814882267137

https://twitter.com/i/status/1572716326535462913

Silver Linings Shining Through

 

I have felt for some time, intuitively, that we are on the cusp of something this fall; that the old order is passing away. Not just fading, but about to collapse. 

I see more signs of this in the day’s news.

Things are getting hot in Iran. The trigger was the death of a young woman in police custody.

One would not normally expect such an event to lead to mass protests; a lot of young people have died suddenly and mysteriously of late. That it has shows the people of Iran were tinder waiting for a match. This might be the end of that oligarchic regime.

In response to Putin’s mobilization of, at last report, one million conscripts, there is also turmoil in the streets of Russia. There are reports of long lineups at the borders, and overbooked flights out. This might be the end of that oligarchy as well.

American generals interviewed seem to agree that this call up sounds like desperation, that it is unlikely to turn things around in Ukraine, but carries huge domestic risks.

If the people are in the streets in Russia and Iran, and especially if one of those governments goes down, it is likely in this globalized world for the protests to spread. The next likely candidate is China, where people have been growing restive and economically desperate.

In Canada, the Twitter hashtag #TrudeauMustGo is becoming a phenomenon reminiscent of the Freedom Convoy. It seems to have caught on with the public, with over half a million Canadians at last count joining in. They—we--post a short bio and demand Trudeau’s resignation for calling us misogynists, racists, and the like.

If only half a million is not enough to turn out a government, Canadians value their social peace and quiet. If the message gets out that a large body of their fellow citizens are outraged by Trudeau, and they all have friendly, human faces, the likely conclusion in the minds of the Canadian majority is that, for social peace, Trudeau must indeed go. The unrest is not the fault of some deplorable “fringe minority.” These are ordinary, honest neighbours.

One of them is even Trudeau's half-brother.

I feel that things are moving fast. The government of Canada may also be gone soon. Nanos says recent polls show the NDP sucking support from the Liberals, This gives the Dippers a motive to pull the plug on the minority government. They can increase their seat total. At the same time, a closer split between Liberals and NDP is likely to throw seats to the Conservatives.

Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Perception and the Fall of Empires

The Frogs were living as happy as could be in a marshy swamp that just suited them; they went splashing about caring for nobody and nobody troubling with them. But some of them thought that this was not right, that they should have a king and a proper constitution, so they determined to send up a petition to Jove to give them what they wanted. 

"Mighty Jove," they cried, "send unto us a king that will rule over us and keep us in order." Jove laughed at their croaking, and threw down into the swamp a huge Log, which came down - kerplash! - into the swamp. 

The Frogs were frightened out of their lives by the commotion made in their midst, and all rushed to the bank to look at the horrible monster; but after a time, seeing that it did not move, one or two of the boldest of them ventured out towards the Log, and even dared to touch it; still it did not move.  

Then the greatest hero of the Frogs jumped upon the Log and commenced dancing up and down upon it, thereupon all the Frogs came and did the same; and for some time the Frogs went about their business every day without taking the slightest notice of their new King Log lying in their midst. But this did not suit them, so they sent another petition to Jove, and said to him, 

"We want a real king; one that will really rule over us." 

Now this made Jove angry, so he sent among them a big Stork that soon set to work gobbling them all up.

--Aesop 

Iranian protests continue.

It all makes me recall the sad fate of the Shah of Iran. His regime fell under far less difficult circumstances. Iran had been developing rapidly, was about as rich as Spain at the time, was dominant in the region, and was the fifth-largest military power in the world. The Shah was an autocrat, but a moderate one, who was generally inclined to commute death sentences and declare amnesties. His worst vice seemed to be personal extravagance.

That, and his moderation on matters of religion, which alienated the mullahs.

Governments fall not because they are evil or repressive, but because they appear incompetent.

The Shah, depressed as a result of cancer and the drugs used to treat it, had become indecisive.

Or witness Louis XVI. He lost his crown and the head that held it up not because he was repressive, but because he was bankrupt, and kept changing his mind.

Yet the worst of governments can continue, seemingly indefinitely. Witness the survival of the Kim dynasty in North Korea, despite appalling famines. Witness the ability of Assad to hang on in Syria.

Nor is it just that people fear a repressive government too much. It is not terror that holds them in thrall. That cannot explain the continuing popularity of Mao in China. Stalin in Russia too still has his supporters. These men were, objectively, as bad as Hitler. The difference is not in the extent of their crimes, but that Hitler lost his war, and they didn’t.

It has been argued that the British Empire was doomed, as much as anything, by the loss of Singapore in the Second World War. It made them look incompetent. Their subject peoples around the world no longer looked up to them.

This is now the crisis faced by the Iranian government: they seem to have been revealed as all bluster, but incompetent.

And this is also the crisis faced by “the elites” worldwide—the clerisy, the professions. They are increasingly being shown up by the new, freer flow of information as not really knowing what they are doing.

Unrest in Iran

Image from Iran's "Green Revolution," 2009.

I think it was Craine Brinton who proposed, through his historical analysis, that revolutions do not happen because a government is seen as evil. They happen when a government is seen as incompetent.

Their recent tangle with Trump may have revealed the Iranian government to their own people as incompetent.

The Iranians, being Middle Eastern Muslims, probably understood better than Western journalists the significance of Iran’s firing their missiles into the Iraqi dirt in response to America’s assassination of Soleimani. It was an admission of powerlessness. As I have noted previously, Islam is predisposed to assume that strength shows God’s sanction.

More critical was the downing of the Ukrainian airliner. Canadian reports stress how many Canadians were on board. But these were surely dual citizens, returning from a visit with relatives in Iran. The Iranian government shot down an airliner full of Iranians. One can understand why they were reluctant to admit it.

It is of course absurd to suggest that they did it on purpose. But it suggests panic and incompetence. It suggests a government not fit to govern.

The Iranian Islamic Republic was already subject to mass unrest. This could trigger their downfall.

Al Jazeera on the Ukrainian Passenger Jetliner Downing

Like Russian TV, Al Jazeera shows itself more reliable and balanced on Iran than the CBC.

Being American as the Root of All Evil

It has apparently been confirmed by American satellite images that the Iranian air defense mistakenly shot down the Ukrainian airliner.

Responding to what was then only a theory, one leftist friend posted on Facebook, “If this happened as a result of that ignorant sleazebag in the White House, I hope the next missile lands squarely on him.”

Another leftist suggested that it was probably an American drone that shot down the plane, not an Iranian missile.

Another comments “Trump should have been assassinated.”

Another: “Was watching Amanpour & Co. on PBS last night. The interviews and talks were on the Iran situation. At least one of the Americans, can't remember who, presented a bizarre concept: acceptable levels of retaliation. He said the actions taken by Iran to retaliate against the killing of that general were within acceptable levels, and that Iran was careful not to poke the bear. So exactly who establishes these levels? Is taking down a passenger plane OK?”

Another writes “Iranian missiles? Yeah sure, America, I believe you.”

Surely this rises to the level of delusion. No matter what happens, the Americans must be responsible, and the Iranians can bear no responsibility.

It is similar when it comes to dealing with women: no matter what they do, blame must be placed on the nearest available male.

In the end, this is profoundly demeaning to both women and Iranians. In denying them free will, it denies them moral worth. It denies them a soul.

Not, of course, that it is good for Americans. They are made out to be the source of all evil. It’s the same logic behind the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the International Jewish Conspiracy.

Word War Three Update Update

I see reports that Iran actually warned the US in advance of their missile strikes yesterday, so that the Americans could get all their personnel out of harm’s way. After the strike, they announced that they had finished their “retaliation,” and would not do anything more so long as the Americans didn’t respond.

In other words, purely symbolic, to save face.

In the meantime, it looks as though the Iranians were so panicky about a new American attack that they mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian commercial airliner in Tehran, no doubt imagining it was an incoming bomber.

World War III Update

There is no question in my mind that Trump made a mistake in suggesting the US might, if provoked, bomb Iranian cultural sites. I assume he was bluffing, but even so, it sends the message that his fight is with Iran and Iranian culture, rather than with the present government. This is not true; the average Iranian, by all reports I have heard from those who have visited Iran, is likely to be on Trump’s side at this point. But threatening to destroy elements of their culture threatens that, and strengthens the current regime.

And it would be militarily and strategically senseless to bomb cultural sites. All loss, no gain. If Iran wants to provoke the US further, there are truly valuable targets easily available. This is why I expect the Iranian response to be muted. They have to do something, or lose face. But they dare not escalate.

They have fired a few mortar rounds and a few missiles. But it actually looks as though they were fired to just miss their targets. No casualties. And the Iranian cyber squad has apparently hacked into—the US federal library system. That's got to hurt. There's a comedy skit in that.

Its mountainous terrain makes Iran hard to invade on the ground. But its geography also makes vulnerable. It has little access to the sea, to export the oil on which its economy depends. Trump could level the few exposed port facilities easily. No need even to thread through layers of air defense. He could also easily blockade at the Strait of Hormuz.

And he could exploit any provocation to try to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities. This, after all, was plan A before Obama sought conciliation: either the US or Israel was going to try to bomb them.

What's Happening in Iran

The current demonstrations in Iran could end in many different ways. The BBC is still insisting they are “small.” However, several striking things suggest this may lead to the end of the Iranian regime.

First. it has escalated very quickly—almost immediately—from a protest over prices to a demand for the regime to fall. This is unusual in such events. It suggests a strong underlying opposition to the regime, only needing a trigger.

It has spread across the country very quickly. We'll see if this continues. Day one: one city. Day two: seven cities. Day three: dozens of cities all over the country, including the capital. Day four: ? It begins to look like a genuine popular uprising.

Reports are that security forces are reluctant to fire on protesters, and the regime has responded immediately to the protests with concessions. The law requiring women to wear the hijab in public has already been rescinded. This is a sign of weakness. The regime does not seem confident they can rely on the security fores to do their bidding. Revolutions always win when and because the security forces refuse to fire on protesters.

Iran seems to be in the classic pre-revolutionary state, as analysed by Crane Brinton. There is a huge cohort of educated young people, and high unemployment. The Guardian quotes anonymous "Ali" as saying, "Every year thousands of students graduate, but there are no jobs for them." Exactly the situation right before the French Revolution. Recent economic hopes have been dashed, leading to a sense of frustration. Iranians had reason to hope that, with the nuclear deal and the lifting of international sanctions, things would get better economically. They have not; thanks no doubt in large part to the fallen price of oil. It is this sort of frustrated hope, and not a long-term general decline or political repression, that inspires people to turn out in the streets and demand change.

Unlike in 2009, this time, the US government is likely to back the protesters. And the protesters have been told so, in the Trump administration's immediate announcement. Regardless of any material aid the US sends, this is an important psychological factor. I have also heard it said that both Israel and Britain have important intelligence capabilities on the ground in Iran; if they put them at the US's disposal now, effective aid might indeed be possible. Israel has every reason to do so. Britain should probably want to as well: they need a trade deal with Trump now that they are pulling out of the EU. Besides, it matters to their prestige to demonstrate such capabilities.

So, in sum, I think odds are decent to good that this actually ends the regime.

What happens then?

First, who takes over? Most likely, the military. There have been calls in the street for a return of the monarchy. But in any event it is not going to be another Islamist regime. The Islamists and the Muslim religious authorities will have been discredited by association with the fallen regime. The next regime is almost certainly going to be secularist.

If the Iranian regime falls, and a secular government replaces it, this becomes another huge win for Trump. Right after his signal win over ISIS.

Iran has been propping up Assad in Syria. With Russia now withdrawing, if Iran pulls back, Assad probably falls.

In the meantime, the pressure comes off Saudi Arabia in Yemen. Hezbollah loses its funding in Lebanon. It should be a great boost for Saudi Arabia, who need one. A lot of pressure comes off Israel. A lot of pressure comes off the government in Iraq, where Iran has been funding factionalism. The effect on Saudi Arabia's restive Eastern Province and Bahrain is hard to foresee. A new government may be inclined to be less interventionist, but a more attractive new government may be more of an ideological magnet for Shia populations there.

With ISIS down, Saudi Arabia having declared its intent to turn in a more secular direction, and with fewer funds to promote Wahhabism abroad in any case, and the Islamist regime out in Iran, Islamism may soon be on its last legs. The Iranian failure will tend to discredit Islamist movements elsewhere in the region. It begins to look like a failed ideology; like Baathism and Nasserism before it.

Presumably the new government would scrap Iran's nuclear pretensions. The program dictated from the streets apparently will be money for the Iranian people, not for foreign adventurism. “Iran First.” This takes pressure off the US in turn, and allows them to focus more completely on North Korea's nuclear threat.

Of course, we may see some other dominoes topple, if Iran's government topples. Just as in the “Arab Spring” a few years ago. Then, similar demonstrations soon appeared not just across the Arab world, but also in Russia and China. The results of the Arab Spring have been disappointing enough to work against the same thing happening again in the Arab world. But maybe again in Russia or China.

The Decline and Fall of Everyone

Not the way it usually works.

Contrary to what you commonly hear, social Darwinism, the idea that survival of the fittest applies to human nations and cultures, was no perversion of Darwin's original theory. Darwin himself was the first social Darwinist. It was the subject of his later book The Descent of Man. Leading pretty directly to the First and Second World Wars.

In Descent, Darwin makes the interesting observation that, when cultures are no longer, for one reason or another, competitive in the evolutionary struggle, they are not necessarily defeated militarily by some neighbouring tribe. They often seem instead to simply lay down and die. Darwin cites a Mr. Sproat, who observed the Native Indians of Vancouver Island, over time, become “bewildered and dull by the new life around them; they lose the motives for exertion, and get no new ones in their place.” (Darwin, p. 542). That sounds, indeed, like what has happened to native cultures in North America generally.

Soon, fertility declines. Darwin tracks the rapid fall in the number of Tasmanian aboriginals. Far from being exterminated by the Europeans, according to Darwin, the Tasmanian government took every effort to keep them going. Nevertheless, the native islanders seem to have simply stopped reproducing. “At the time when only nine women were left at Oyster Cove, … only two had ever borne children: and these two had together produced only three children” (p. 548). Among the Maoris of New Zealand, similarly, Darwin quotes figures that, in 1844, there was one child for every 2.57 adults; in 1858, only 14 years later, there was one child for every 3.27 adults. In Hawaii, after contact with the Europeans, fertility fell to “half a child for every married couple in the whole island” (p. 552).

Last four Tasmanian aborigines, 1860.

I don't think these examples bear out Darwin's theories; they suggest a spiritual instead of a material cause for the rise and fall of nations. Do animal species die out from ennui? But they are of interest in showing how depression works, and that it is primarily a loss of meaning. A culture or an individual, coming into contact with a new culture, is automatically challenged in their prior assumptions. If that new culture is different enough, and seems to offer plainly superior results in some fields, this is necessarily powerfully so. Everything seems, to the individual in the less developed culture, to become pointless, as all the old signposts and destinations seem disproven. This, I suspect, is what African cultures refer to as “loss of soul.”

Hence the shock and depression in these cases almost entirely hits the aboriginal, not the European, culture.

The same effect, not incidentally, can be achieved by surrounding an individual with consistent lies, which challenge his own common sense and experience, as happens in a dysfunctional family. It can happen on a broader, social level when a culture for whatever reason departs generally from common sense and common experience, with or without any outside pressures upon it.

The culture or the individual is then caught between a spiritual Scylla and Charybdis. He dares not leap nor stay behind. There is the same sense of purposelessness as with the “lazy Indians,” or for that matter, the “lazy negroes,” like a car that cannot get into any gear. Hence the lack of interest in sex, which is really a lack of interest in procreation and childrearing. To have a child is a vote that the future will be better, not worse, than the present.

First point: the reality that these things happen disproves the idea of cultural relativism. All cultures are not equal, or culture shock would be more evenly distributed. Second point: such things are not the superior culture's fault. Time to get rid of notions of “cultural imperialism” and “cultural genocide.” Third point: there is a cure to depression, and it is to make the leap.

In other words, broadly, the residential schools were the right idea, and our current drive to resegregate and revive aboriginal cultures will only prolong the problem.

It is also interesting to see that the clearest symptom of this problem on a cultural level is a decline in fertility rates.

We have such a decline, of course, currently across the West. Our culture generally has strayed too far from common sense and common experience. If it does not correct itself, it will die, as did these others.

But who will replace it? Fertility rates have fallen even more disastrously in East Asia. And they are falling in South Asia (i.e., India). And in the Middle East. In Russia, they have long been alarmingly low. So much for possible competing civilizations. In fact, fertility rates seem to be falling just about everywhere.

All of this is actually prompted by an article from David P. Goldman, “Spengler,” on the demographics of modern Iran. Fertility there has fallen from 7 children per woman in 1979 to 1.6 in 2012. This is a bigger decline than has ever been seen before in a large, developed country.

Clearly, there is something very wrong with the spiritual climate, and there are as yet no solutions in sight.

Iran and Turkey

Turkey is installing Patriots on its border with Syria; and Iran has declared this to be an act of war. World war, in fact.

It’s surely not going to happen, but it’s interesting to contemplate what might happen in a war between Iran and Turkey. Relations between the two countries have been deteriorating for some time, and I think there is a larger reason for this. The two are in open competition to emerge as leaders of the Muslim world. Their two systems are the two great models for government in the Muslim world: the Turkish secularist model, and the Iranian theocratic model.

But in any such conflict, Turkey has all of the trump cards. Iran is Shia, and the Shias are a minority in the Muslim world. Turkey has the advantage of having been the last Caliphate, the last acknowledged leader of Islam. Turkey is much wealthier, and developing much faster. And I would wager Turkey’s modern, NATO-class military would completely overmatch Iran’s, which struggled with Saddam’s Iraq. If Turkey were to enter Syria, Iran would be powerless to do anything about it, due to the geography; but it would be a severe blow to Iran’s prestige. By contrast, Iran is in the uncomfortable situation of having ethnic Turks—natural allies—on two sides.

Turkey also has natural allies in the Gulf: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the Emirates, all with very impressive, high tech forces. That surrounds Iran on three sides, with Turkey’s NATO allies still in occupation of Afghanistan on the fourth. All this without even considering Israel, who has her own compelling reasons to strike against Iran.

Given all this, why is Iran even bothering with this bellicose speech? Especially since Israel, the US, and perhaps Turkey have every reason to be seeking an excuse to go in and take out its nuclear potential. One suspects it has to do with some internal power struggle. And a pretty desperate one.

It almost looks as though the Iranian regime might be in its last throes.

Israel's October Surprise

This writer is saying the same things I have been saying here:

http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/when-israel-strikes-iran-in-october/

Hard to believe there's no fire behind all the smoke about an imminent Israeli strike on Iran.

The Coming October Surprise

There is definitely chatter going on about Obama dropping Biden as VP candidate in favour of Hillary Clinton.

Here's what I think is behind it.

Israel believes Iran is very close to having a nuclear weapon. Their calculation is to strike now, if they think Obama is going to be reelected, or wait, if they think a new administration might be more favourable to Israel.

The polls now favour Obama.

Therefore, the Israelis are likely to strike at least before January. Indeed, the calculus may suggest striking as soon as they are reasonably certain of an Obama win. That would probably be September or October. Just in time for an “October surprise.”

If they strike, there is likely to be a muscular response from Iran. This will dominate the news for a time; Israeli sources are talking about a month-long war.

Whether or not Obama was a good bet to win before this point, this will probably make him a shoo-in. Nobody can blame him for the carnage, and the natural tendency will be to rally round the Commander in Chief. This also takes the public focus off economics, Obama's weak spot, and puts it on foreign affairs, where he seems to have done a decent job. Or rather, Hillary Clinton seems to have done a decent job.

This development, if it comes, will leave the Republican ticket flat-footed, as its expertise is entirely on domestic economic matters. The Ryan pick cemented that, and struck me as risky in part for this reason.

At this point, Obama doing anything is perhaps a case of spiking the ball, but it does make sense to highlight the foreign policy side by taking on Clinton as VP candidate, giving the Democratic ticket the image of the team who are most likely to be able to handle the foreign crisis. That is not quite so clear with Obama-Biden—Romney and Ryan just might pip them in perceived competence even so. It is Clinton who has been the face of US foreign policy. Presumably, Obama has or soon will have advance warning from the Israelis at least that they are seriously considering an attack.

If he does decide to swap Biden for Clinton, I think it will be an indication that the balloon is going up.

Some say Clinton is unlikely to want the job. However, if she wanted the Secretaryship of State, she might also go for the Vice Presidency in these circumstances. If she wants to succeed Obama as president, then, win or lose, this puts her in a somewhat better position, by eliminating Biden as a rival in 2016. If she does not want to succeed Obama as president, then this is a good way to cap off her political career. Rockefeller made the same decision.