Foreign troops have entered Bahrain to quell the month-long uprising. Some are calling it an invited peacekeeping force from neighbouring Gulf Cooperation Council states. Others are calling it what it looks like – military intervention by Saudi Arabia.
Remember the raving lunatic Gaddafi who seemed to be under the delusion that he was the ruler of Libya? Well he’s winning. He may only have minority support, but it’s the minority with most of the heavy weapons.
There is little the rest of the world can do for Japan now. They have the resources to deal with the disaster; any specialised help needed they will get. The danger is that while we are fixated on the human tragedy and nuclear drama, besieged dictatorships in the Middle East will move to crush their nascent democracy movements.
2 replies on “Look Behind You”
Regardless of whether or not we are fixated on the tragedy in Japan, “besieged dictatorships in the Middle East will move to crush their nascent democracy movements.” These guys are set up to do one thing and one thing only: crush revolt. SA is not going to allow Shia-majority rule next door to their own Shia-majority areas, which also happen to be where the oil is. Gaddafi is not the clown he seems to play, either. He’s kept the 50,000 man conscript army minimally equipped, showing favor to his 20,000 man paramilitary militia of tribal loyalists who’ve done well out of his regime. (IMO this is exactly what would be happening in Iraq now if we hadn’t invaded, with the possible exception that if Saddam were too ill, his two sons might screw it up badly enough to be deposable.) He’s kept the Air Force mostly loyal. He has airbases deep in the Sahara and layers of SAMs protecting them, and unlike Saddam with the northern no-fly-zone, he would have absolutely nothing to lose by shooting down as many of our planes as he could. The US military estimates it would take more than one fleet carrier group to disable his air defenses, which is to say more than the entire air war assets of the EU. And EU public is notoriously casualty-shy. As for SA and Bahrain, SA has the oil and it does whatever it wants, end of story. No one is going to do anything to either SA or Libya, or at least not anything that the leaders of those countries will give a crap about.
Regardless of whether or not we are fixated on the tragedy in Japan, “besieged dictatorships in the Middle East will move to crush their nascent democracy movements.” These guys are set up to do one thing and one thing only: crush revolt. SA is not going to allow Shia-majority rule next door to their own Shia-majority areas, which also happen to be where the oil is. Gaddafi is not the clown he seems to play, either. He’s kept the 50,000 man conscript army minimally equipped, showing favor to his 20,000 man paramilitary militia of tribal loyalists who’ve done well out of his regime. (IMO this is exactly what would be happening in Iraq now if we hadn’t invaded, with the possible exception that if Saddam were too ill, his two sons might screw it up badly enough to be deposable.) He’s kept the Air Force mostly loyal. He has airbases deep in the Sahara and layers of SAMs protecting them, and unlike Saddam with the northern no-fly-zone, he would have absolutely nothing to lose by shooting down as many of our planes as he could. The US military estimates it would take more than one fleet carrier group to disable his air defenses, which is to say more than the entire air war assets of the EU. And EU public is notoriously casualty-shy. As for SA and Bahrain, SA has the oil and it does whatever it wants, end of story. No one is going to do anything to either SA or Libya, or at least not anything that the leaders of those countries will give a crap about.