Imaging having the knowledge of the entire world at your fingertips and still choosing to listen to the sound of one's own voice. That's the internet in a nutshell.
Saudi Arabia has a branch called the
Strategic Missile Force which was established in
1986 in response to both Iran and Iraq. Historically it has operated the DF-3 and recently acquired DF-21 according to reports. CIA did all it could to ensure that missiles would be conventional but all it takes is an upgrade and a warhead.
The upgrade can be solved in no time since it's a Chinese missile. The warhead will come from Pakistan because it's an open secret that Saudis financed Pakistani nuclear program with the explicit intention of developing "Islamic nuclear sharing". There are two types of claims that are made regarding Saudi nuclear capabilities:
- that Pakistani warheads are already in Saudi Arabia but are restricted by Pakistanis and overseen by American secret services.
- that it takes merely days to transfer the warheads from Pakistan where they are kept separately overseen by Saudi secret services.
Those claims are obviously unverified gossip that is spread on purpose by both sides as preparation for the decisions when they need to be made quickly.
Why do you think the US pays so much attention to Pakistan?
What makes it "
unpredictable nuclear actor with risk of uncontrolled proliferation"? Learn to read between the lines and you will see that there is far more wisdom in every page of text than the words themselves.
What???
The tensions in the Middle East predate America by centuries. When Reagan said he didn't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics he meant it like a kid who reads Harry Potter (the Bible) and wants to understand who the real world of adults works.
Current tensions emerged during the early Islamic era. At the core of it is the conflict between Iran representing the remainder of the ancient Iranian culture that has been almost wiped out by Islamic savages and Saudi Arabia representing the very political center of those savages. Iran might be Islamized today but there a vivid memory of the conquest and genocides still lingers. Early Islam was like the Nazi ideology and the Arabs were like the Mongols. It was only about 100 years later that the Abbasid revolution created the foundations for what we know as Islam today, possibly putting together the Qu'ran (which would be the third time Persians inspired an Abrahamic religion - after Judaism and Christianity. There was no "Golden Age of Islam" but a resurgence of Persia that had to work together against the oppressors with the former enemies - Roman Christians. It almost worked, but then came first the Gokturks and then the Mongols and destroyed everything.
Iranian culture has echoes of Persia, which itself imposed itself on a much older civilization predating it. It's cultural DNA, an atavism. You can't get rid of it just because you are Shia now. You will be in opposition because your nature forces you to.
There won't be a humanitarian miracle as long as Islam has the structure and position that it does. The Shias and the Sunnis don't hate each other because of religion. They hate each other because of Persia and Arabia. Does China know how to fix that? It doesn't because nobody knows. It's not about politics. It's about civilization.
Even Israel is just an echo of ancient Israel which was a client state of Persia. Israel literally fulfills the same role it did 2500 years ago and uses the same cultural foundation for it. Do you even know how Israel came to be and why? And I don't mean modern Israel but
ancient Israel.
The Middle East has lost
two entire civilizations while China is technically still on its first. We in Europe are not so removed from it both geographically and culturally as to delude ourselves that we are the center of the world even though we are China's historical peers. In fact German imperialism in the 19th century and the "Aryan" myth is nothing short of claiming the mantle of ancient Iran and partly because the British and the French imagined themselves to be the descendants of the Romans or Greeks. Nietzche wrote
Also sprach Zarathustra not because has was an outsider but because it was the hottest thing at the time and fit in the dichotomy of rival powers mirroring the ancient world. Outside of Asia European imperialism in 19th century was driven by narratives of reclaiming the past. That's why it was so different from the earlier colonial stage which was purely mercantile.
Imagine Qin Shi Huangdi going to some place in China and seeing the Great Wall in place, a remnant of civilization that is as removed from his time as he is from us. That's what the founders of European civilization - the Greeks and Romans saw in places like Egypt or Babylon.
The Middle East is unique in world history. There's no precedent for it or its problems. The current conflicts are a mirror of the Bronze Age era. China will be as perplexed and frustrated by it as we were. The only solution is to make yourself more resistat or immune to it by shifting away from fossil fuels. You can help yourself but you can't help the Middle East unless it decides to help itself. And for that you need a
motivator. I hope you remember what
motivated both China and Europe to work together.
The road to wisdom lies in the knowledge of the past. You do not remember your ancestors because they know better than you. You do it because you can never know where you are going if you do not know where you are coming from.
