Follow up to Hotspots and more

When you make a general presumptive blanket statement many people will tend to discount it or ignore it. I made probably many in my last post, but I feel pretty comfortable overall with what I posted. Most of it is a quick discussion on a variety of scenarios around the world and some of the direction I think we should go.
One such statement I made was a comment that the Sunni /Shite or Shi’ite historical differences were more political power plays than a true religious war. Now this was made based on my cursory reading of Middle East history over the years. And if you read through history you might come to the same conclusion I did. Yes it was generalized and simplistic, but I do feel confident about it. And lo and behold that confidence grows when you run across a true scholarly article that goes into great detail the recent history in Syria and all the players involved. This paper discussed in length the events of the last few years in Syria and what some people are doing to ramp up the war pre and post Daesh. The paper is called “The Shite Jihad in Syria and its regional effect” by Phillip Smyth. There is a discussion of the article on the publication Business Insider titled “The Most important thing in the Middle East that no one is talking about”. I did download the whole article. It is 88 pages in my download, but some of that is table of contents and intro.

This paper did though slap me in my face with my glaring omission of Iran. There are many issues in the Middle East, my main concern was the lack of true focus by other Middle East powers against Daesh and their unstated desire for the West to handle the problem. There is a history of avoiding conflicts that someone else can take the blame for. And you might say, are you kidding me the Middle East seems to always be in some conflict. The only real conflict in the Middle East is whomever at the moment feels they can attack Israel. Historically there have been some huge wars, but those happened a long time ago. Outside of the Iran Iraq war of the 1980’s and Israel, there aren’t many wars within the Middle East. And shoot, a couple of the Israel wars were over before most of the rest of the world finished the headlines. Now there are some conflicts, but again these are based on someone trying to finalize a power play. Syria seems to prove this according to the paper mentioned. So this is why I didn’t spend much time on other countries in the Middle East except I missed Iran. It has its own unique circumstances even more so than Pakistan and Afghanistan. Al Queda still exists in various forms, but Daesh is the real hotspot now. Yet Iran and its desire to become a very major player in the Middle East and beyond is not something to forget.

We in the west can forget that Iran via Persia has a long history and a very important one in the history of world affairs. Do not let the current religious government lead you astray. This is more about Iranian power using religious dogma as a vehicle to try and regain prominence in the world. Dictators and tyrannical governments come in all sorts of forms, but they all have one thing in common. They want power via subjugating people to their will. They could care less what others think of them. Iranian leaders may state they are fighting for their version of Islam, but in reality this is about them. Anyway surprised myself I forgot to mention Iran.

And there is always an exception to any generalized comment. Thank Jordan and the King of Jordan for being a bit more responsive to the madness around them. Sorry it took such a horrible tragedy to bring them to the forefront.

Also for some of the other countries in the Middle East I wrote a post called the Paranoid Post many moons ago that discussed some of my concern around the Saudis. It was an extrapolation of some thoughts I had and I narrated out some of my worst fears. Still hold those in the back of my head. It also discussed a couple of other hotspot situations including a bit about Daesh at the time.

On a different note, I have never supported Obama, much less voted for him, but I am not a big Obama hater. Every now and then he can do or say something really stupid. Does he not have filters around him that let him know, there is a mainstream opinion in this country (not the haters) that still has certain believes especially around religion that he needs to take into consideration? Also his ideas of giving the amnesty for immigrants or whatever he said a few months ago is just impossible to implement. And just as impossible as the Republican idea to round up all the illegals. Both are logistical nightmares and do not solve the real immigration reform this country needs. We have got to decide what to do and how we are going to handle our overall immigration situation. Nothing by either party though makes sense. Maybe I will get my act together and actually offer an alternative. I do like to at least put something out instead of just complain.


And finally on what would be a more pleasant note and that is a Sports comment, except the Mavs are starting to tick me off. I really like the potential for this team, but they are making stupid mistakes against good teams. Seriously guys, pay attention to what you are doing. And the Rondo injury is going to hurt them more than Rondo just missing a few games. I said it would take about twenty games for them to start to gel with him on the team and it actually started to look like it was going to take more. I still feel it will work, but taking longer than I even thought. Now with the injury and the length of time he may be out, this may take us way too close to the playoffs for the potential to be reached in time.

Well the good news is we are about one month away to one of the two best months in any sport and that is March Madness. I cannot wait. The other month being the Soccer World Cup. Even though FIFA is a bit of a shad, the games themselves can be great and the intensity of the last few games to be the champion of the world in one sport is fantastic to watch. Thank goodness though March Madness comes around once a year. The players, the traditions, the underdogs, and just the intensity and emotion of the games make this a truly special event. And of course the extra craziness of trying to pick a winning bracket, even though not part of the tradition, just adds to the adrenaline in watching the games.

Have a great weekend everyone