The Love Chronicles

The Love Chronicles

WWIII?

By John Love

            If you think that WWIII is not a possibility in our near future, think again. All the players are positioned, world politics, economics, increasing religious fanaticism, and more than a few despots and dictators around the globe with their fingers on very large triggers.

So lets look at current events. I would like to direct your attention to the troop withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. I have warned that, in my opinion, when we pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, both of these countries will revert to form so fast it will make you dizzy just trying to keep up. I am sorry to say, my prediction is coming true in Iraq even faster than I imagined. Political pundits of one party or another will try to blame it on some person or persons of an opposing party. Our political leaders are responsible, but they are reacting to a public who wanted our troops out of harms way, regardless of consequence, and public opinion when overwhelmingly strong will outweigh any politicians commons sense, even if he or she had any in the first place.

We pulled troops out of Iraq knowing full well that the country was not stable enough to avoid a possible civil war. Our military commanders recommended that 20,000 troops be retained in the country after 2011 in order to maintain a stable Iraq. We failed to win the necessary immunity deal needed for our stay-behind troops, so this recommendation was not granted. I am not sure why we needed to ask for this deal, we were a conquering force, were we not. We are pretty much maligned and resented throughout the world anyway, so I think we should have not asked, but told them how it was going to be.  This total withdrawal puts Iraq in danger of collapse and a disaster for our regional interests. Our Presidents hands off policy concerning rule in Iraq is not well thought out, or understood by me.

Iraq started reverting back to a Shiite version of a Saddam Hussein run dictatorship one day after our troops left. Iraq military have been seen flying Shiite flags instead of Iraq’s national flag. The Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki issued an arrest warrant for his vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni. He replaced several Sunni members of parliament with acting ministers of his choosing, he has aligned himself with lawmakers loyal to anti American Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr with ties to Iran. He has taken control of both defense and interior ministries, which gives him control of the military, police, and a huge say in how the judiciary will function. If you harken back, this is exactly how Saddam established his power base. We seem to be ignoring all of this. I guess Washington hopes if they close their eyes, maybe the whole mess will just disappear.

Sectarian violence, or lets call it what it is, religious fanaticism, reared it’s ugly head the day after we pulled troops out with fifteen bombs in Baghdad that reportedly killed 65 people. A group calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq took credit. While mainstream news agencies in the Arab world try to steer clear of outright encouragement of such acts, smaller Arabic speaking stations do not seem to have any problem encouraging and predicting more of the same.

I am not an Obama hater. I believe the man wants to make changes for the better, but I think he has a congress that is stagnate, and he himself has a lack of experience that is hampering him, along with an entrenched staff that in my opinion has been largely responsible for alienating him from a congress he really needed to bond with.  I think the troop withdrawal will be remembered as one of the worst foreign policy decisions ever made. We have lost our advantage in a region of the world where we really need it just now. Iran has not only a fanatic at its helm in Ahmadinejad; I believe the man is not all that intelligent. All you have to do is listen to one of his speeches, no man of any intelligence could think his rhetoric could be believed by anyone with a triple digit intellect.

So with this in mind, lets get back to the main point I wanted to make, WWIII! I know, you think I am being over dramatic.  I don’t think so, lets look at some more recent developments in our world today. Oil is primarily purchased on the world market using the American dollar. So big market countries for oil must keep a large amount of American dollars on hand to enable these purchases. Countries like China, Japan, and India are prime examples. The need for countries across the globe to keep large amounts of American currency on hand helps keep the dollar value high and is the main reason we can continue to issue low interest bonds that pay for our extremely high budget deficits. A change in how countries buy oil, especially a change in what currency is used, would be catastrophic for the U.S. economy and our runaway deficit.

The Russians have recently been extolling the Iranians to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to do its job. They are saying, publicly at least, that they are concerned about Tehran intending to open and underground uranium enrichment facility.  Of course they supplied Iran with all of the technology they needed in this endeavor, they built Iran’s first nuclear power plant and have said, as recently as last November, that they would build more! So, in response, the United States has increased its pressure on Iran with even stricter sanctions. The rial has lost value against the dollar in Iran due to the pressures put on it by the U. S. making the cost of living even worse for the Iranian citizen, a regrettable side effect. Iran is trying to convince countries to change how they do business with each other, expressly it is trying to get them to use other forms of payment and barter that does not include the U.S. dollar! So guess what those sweet little pea pickin Russians are supposedly doing. Well out of the kindness of their hearts they are allowing the Iranians to replace all trade transactions with Russia with the ruble and the rial. This substantially eases sanctions the U.S. is trying to enforce. It also sets a very dangerous precedent for other countries like Japan, China, and India, some of our largest hoarders and users of the almighty dollar. If they decided to follow suit, our economy would be damaged, possibly beyond repair. This coupled with Russia moving an aircraft carrier group into the Mediterranean, Iran threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, and President Obama stating we will use military force to keep it open makes the world a dangerous place.

You also need to realize that one of the real reasons we got serious about Saddam was because he was trying to get a shift from using the American dollar for his Iraqi oil. This time it was suggested by President Dmitry Medvedev to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan to substitute the ruble and rial in their trade with each other.  So we have a U.S. President who has said he will use military force to insure the straits of Hormuz stay open, that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons capability, an increased Russian presence in the Med coupled with our own three carrier group build up and it is an incident just waiting to happen.  You couple that with our withdrawal in Iraq, giving Iran an opportunity to exert control in that region, a nuclear Pakistan we don’t really control, and a Taliban we are now so desperate to appease we are negotiating a peace in Afghanistan. It to, as I have said for years, will also revert to type the day we leave.  Add to that an economy that depends on the use of the almighty dollar in the world oil trade to keep us solvent, and you can see the triggers to start a war are many and varied. Religious fanatics fueled by ignorance and tribal mentalities, coupled with old school entrenched distrust of us by both China and Russia, along with how we are perceived by the world at large creates a very dangerous road for us to travel in 2012.  I look at my choices for our upcoming presidential election and my blood pressure skyrockets. I believe this is one of the most critical times in our history and we had better start paying attention to who we  elect to represent us!  More importantly we need to make sure they understand if they do not change how they do business, we will. The path we are on will end American dominance in the world and our basic way of life if we continue to wait for the guy next door to take care of it for us. You are the guy or gal next door!